Eh Bien, Dansez Maintenant
by moondusted
Summary: After the Battle of Kirkwall, Hawke and his companions are forced to flee. Under the pressure of conflicting philosophies and the heat of pursuit, Hawke's fellowship falls apart. Moreover, Anders' control over Vengeance begins to fail. In the end, the only desperate measure left is to trust the promise of salvation waiting for them in Val Royeaux.
1. From Morn to Night, my Friend

_**Note: **This takes place shortly after the Battle of Kirkwall and just might narrowly wedge itself between DA2 and Asunder. It still wont match entirely smoothly, partly because Asunder makes assumptions regarding canon that don't work with my version anyway. It shouldn't be too painful, however. I'm careful that way._

_This is **not** the same Hawke as in 'Age of Raptors'! (but read it anyhow, it's short!)_

* * *

**EH BIEN, DANSEZ MAINTENANT**

**by moondusted**

* * *

**Chapter 1: From Morn to Night, my Friend**

Anders woke with a start, propelled himself upward from his bedding only to be held by straps snapping tight around his wrists and biting into his skin. He yelped, felt a surge of anger crawl up his throat and blue flare behind his eyelids. Still disoriented, he fell back and hit his head on the rough edge of the bed-frame. His vision jumped and skittered. He heard himself groan at the sudden pain. Dimly, he remembered that he had to keep _control. _It meant nothing to his confused mind, that phrase, but somehow he knew it was important and he clung to it with all the scraps of his self he still had.

Breathed.

On some faint level he knew it was his sense of injustice reacting to the darkspawn invading his dreams, but knowing that never _helped, _because he couldn't find that knowledge when he slept, couldn't reason or rationalise or _control. _

"You tied me down again," he remarked thinly, took slow, deep breaths and listened to his racing heart. "Not that there is anything wrong with being tied to a bed, but…" he added in a tired, failed attempt to joke.

He turned his head to find Fenris glowering at him across the murky twilight of the small room.

"You'd want me to let you loose, then?" Fenris asked, voice gravelly in annoyance. "It's an alienage out there. How long do you think it would take until you found something unjust?"

Anders made no answer. Fenris was right, of course, damn him, but that didn't mean the righteousness of his attitude didn't grate. "What time is it? Where is everyone?" he asked instead.

"Early morning," Fenris replied. "Merrill is buying food, Hawke has taken Wuffles to the park and Isabela hasn't been home yet."

Now that his sluggish mind was catching up with the reality around him, the ever-present din of the alienage pressed in through the cracks in the shutters along with dusty streaks of thin sunlight. The noise and the stink. _You stop minding the smell after a while, _their landlord had said when he had brought them to the tiny apartment. Two rooms with little furniture apart from the narrow, too short bed he was tied to and the rough table and bench where Fenris currently resided. No wonder Isabela preferred to spent her days and nights in some shady tavern by the docks. Merrill and Fenris lacked that choice. Val Royeaux was a different city than Kirkwall and none of them quite understood the rules here. Two elves, ignorant of social norms would find trouble far too quickly.

Isabela had not said anything, but she was leaving them soon. She had loaned her ship away, but she still heard the call, still felt the pull of the sea. She was known, of course, for her association with Hawke and it had made it easy at first to throw her new fortune to the wolves for them. But Isabela, at the heart of her, was loyal only to herself. Hawke had held her for a time and he mattered to her — they all did — but changing the nature of who she was, lay beyond her. As well it should. No friendship should ever ask for such a sacrifice. Nor should love.

Besides, their tenuous connection to the rest of the world was at the docks. Isabela and Zevran had contacts there, enabling Varric to send messages. No one knew how he had managed to wriggle himself back into the good graces of Kirkwall, but doubtlessly Varric had his ways. He was more useful there, too, spreading his stories in their favour, one voice telling the truth — or Hawke's truth, at least — of what had happened in the Battle of Kirkwall. Whether it would tip the balance, or whether it would mean anything _at all _remained to be seen.

Zevran had left them before reaching Val Royeaux after sending them to the alienage to hide. Zevran had done more than even that, giving a promise of help in a name that probably carried more power than any noble of Orlais, even in Val Royeaux, at least when listening to the assassin.

Anders remembered… but it was hazy, disfigured. Amaranthine was far away, so distant. He was no longer that man, he barely recognised him in his own memories anymore.

"I'm sorry," Anders said and was more surprised to hear himself say that than Fenris, who only snorted.

"_Sorry _means nothing," he sneered. "_Sorry _won't change a thing."

The ceiling hung low above them, Anders saw, staring up at it from wide eyes. Cracks ran through the cheap wood, dried out and dusty. If he looked hard enough, Anders though he could see the tiny fissures as they grew and grew, until they could no longer support the weight of the stories above them.

"Why don't you kill me?" Anders asked.

Fenris growled again, like the wolf he had been named after. He could have taken back his real name, Anders thought, it was telling he had chosen not to.

"If it only were my choice," Fenris pointed out.

"Why don't you kill me _now?" _Anders clarified. It was stupid, tempting Fenris like this. It took a long time for the elf to answer, long enough for Anders to begin to wonder if perhaps he had pushed too hard and Fenris would snap this time. Slaughtered on an elven bed in a slum would not bring justice to those he had killed in the Chantry in Kirkwall, but it would bring closure, at long last. An end. Hawke had been supposed to be the one. Hawke was always the one. But Hawke had refused.

"Because you still have a purpose," Fenris finally said. "You don't get the easy way out." Another pause. "I cannot say I share the reasoning, but it might hold merit. I will not betray my friends the way you have done."

Anders was too tired to argue and he didn't quite trust he would find himself on the right side of the argument. He could not justify himself, not even before himself and he knew Fenris well enough. He would never understand.

"There was no betrayal," Anders said quietly.

"You don't believe that," Fenris said, never missing a beat.

Anders took another breath. The landlord had lied: You never got used to the stink. "Untie me," he said.

"No."

"I need to piss."

Another silence stretched between them, both less hostile than before and less comfortable. It was strange how used they had become to their animosity, it sometimes had the same texture as friendship.

Leather hissed quietly as Fenris got up, cursing quietly in Arcanum.

TRENN

Morning mist still hung thinly above Le Jardin des Etangs, covering the elaborate flowerbeds and muting the colours of the blossoms. Few nobles were about this early and those who were had not been to bed yet and their appearance spoke volumes about the debaucheries of the night before.

Leliana sauntered along a path, feeling the gravel shift soundlessly under her soft boots. The tranquility of the gardens grated on her nerves. She should not be here, listening to gossiping nobles while the world was fast descending into flames. The Divine had not deigned to tell her the reasons why Leliana had to stay in Val Royeaux when her talents would be so much more useful elsewhere. Perhaps Justinia feared that chaos would find them soon enough and she needed her most trustworthy servants close by, or her most deadly weapon.

Listening the gossip revealed much about the state of the world, of course, even if one had to read between the lines to do so. On the surface, there was a lot about plum-coloured tights and velvet caps with white feathers, it was scandal and poison rings and intrigue. It would be a lie to say that Leliana did not enjoy these things. She had learned to accept this part of her since Marjolaine's death and, occasionally, to revel in it. She was good at what she did, why hide from it? And she found a balance by serving the Divine, it kept her honest, reminded her that even dark talents could be made to serve the light.

Something large and black crossed her path, too fast and far too unexpected to make sense of it for a long moment. Leliana stopped on her tracks, heard the gravel crunch like a miniature avalanche.

The mabari bounced back around, crossed her path again and bounded across a manicured lawn, dragging her attention with it. Mabari were not unseen of in Orlais. There were enough nobles who had picked up the habit during the occupation of Ferelden and brought dogs back with them. It was still considered somewhat barbaric, but a noble was nothing without his peculiarities and a rare breed of dogs served the purpose well enough.

Come to think of it, she _had _heard about a Fereldan who had recently come to the city. He served as a young noblewoman's bodyguard and had drawn some attention for his surprisingly cultured manners. Most of the attention had been taken by the noblewoman, however. Young and recently widowed, her husband's family had seized her estate and most of her fortune and she had come to Val Royeaux petitioning the throne for the return of what was hers. The consensus among the courtiers was that she had no interest in some backwater barony, but instead very much hoped to find a foothold in the capital itself.

Leliana left the path and strode after the mabari.

Landscaping had decreed that there was low hill there, given a spine of slender cypresses and descending on the other side to a small pond full of powder-blue water lilies. The dog was drinking from the water while, a little away, a man sat on a stone bench, watching it.

Despite herself, Leliana froze in the gentle sunlight.

Hawke sprawled on the bench, long legs stretched out in front of him and his head settled back on the stone. He tilted his head towards the sky and closed his eyes, relaxed and peaceful. He had let his hair grow and wore it brushed back from his face in oiled curls as fashion demanded, although it didn't suit him much.

When she had first met him, it had been unsettling just how closely he resembled the Warden. Not on first look, they were different men, who had led wildly different lives, but there was something about their presence, about the power of it, as if they were echoes of each other. Singular, if not unique in the world.

She approached him swiftly, silently. The park was nearly empty and neither of them were well-known celebrities, but Val Royeaux was not a place of secrets. Someone would know about this meeting and draw conclusions. All Leliana had to do would be make sure they were the wrong ones. No one must know that Hawke of Kirkwall was here. No one knew what exactly had happened and all the accounts Leliana had read and heard were too varied to find the underlying truth.

"You have some nerve," Leliana observed as she sat down by his side, casually and easily, as if she was speaking about the most trivial thing in the world.

"You make some noise," Hawke replied without moving a muscle or opening his eyes.

"I didn't want to startle you," she said with a smile.

"That's what I'd say, too."

Leliana shook her head, a gesture meant for herself rather than him. A part of her found it difficult to grasp that he would come to Val Royeaux of all the places he could have fled to. How insane must he be? Or how brilliant?

"What are you doing here?" she asked directly, instinct and experience both telling her she would not be able to trick him into revealing anything he wished to hide.

"Walking the dog," he said. "Not wearing plum-coloured tights."

Leliana chuckled. "Which is a pity, no? I heard great things about your legs."

"My… legs?" He cracked one eye open, than the other, glancing at her from the side. He straightened and pulled his legs up, as if making sure they were still as expected. He gave her another sceptical look.

In a way it was ridiculous, this conversation they were having out here in the open, gentle morning sun while the very foundations of the world were coming apart under their feet. This illusion of peace would not last and the worst, she knew, was only just beginning and it all came down to this man in front of her. Hawke had been at the heart of it, the centre of the hurricane threatening to tear them all apart.

She felt the mood tip, saw something cold and earnest come into his eyes.

"Where is Anders?" she asked with the barest of hesitation in her voice at the name.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Hawke smirked. "Save, he is _save. _Anyone threatening him will have to go through me and that's not a pleasant experience. I can be quite nasty."

"He's here," Leliana concluded. "You brought him _here."_

"Why, yes," Hawke shrugged nonchalantly and cold dread slowly crawled up Leliana's spine. Hawke was difficult to predict and that made him difficult to handle. It wasn't like he didn't understand the ramifications of his presence in the Divine's own city, it was simply that he didn't seem to care at all.

"Don't fret," Hawke said slowly. "It wasn't my idea. We were heading to Antiva. Best place to lay low, best place to hide the bodies of anyone coming after us, but then, things don't always work out. I was told to come here instead."

"Told?" Leliana echoed. "By who?"

He eyed her sharply. "An old friend," he said vaguely. "Don't take this the wrong way, but how do I know I can trust you?"

"Because I haven't called the guards yet?" Leliana offered, but the humour was sliding away. It occurred to her just how dangerous this man could be when he slipped to his feet in one perfectly smooth motion. She had never seen him fight, only heard the stories, all these wild tales of his deadliness, but she had seen too many devastating warriors in her life to discount him. If Hawke wasn't as good as they said, he would no longer be alive.

"No, calling the guards only means you'll never find out what this is about," he pointed out. "Whereas letting me run loose… who knows what will be revealed?"

She frowned. "This is Val Royeaux and you think you can play the game?" She made a slight gesture with her hand. "With your little baroness? Do you think she can protect you?"

"I can protect myself, thank you very much." He shook his head as if he grew tired of the topic. "I'm waiting for someone and the salvation he promised. You can have and hang and burn me when this is done. And _only _then."

He looked away from her, scanning the park for his mabari. He gave a high whistle and the dog shot towards them. He whined when he stopped, head moving emphatically. Hawke gave a sigh. "All right, stick around, I'll pick you up on the way back. But no marking of any nobles' leg!"

The dog gave a happy bark and ran off again.

Hawke pulled himself straight, then struck a perfect court bow. "It's been a pleasure to speak with you, Sister Nightingale. It goes without saying that I really don't like being followed. Don't try it."

She met his gaze steadily, refused to acknowledge the unspoken threat. Two could play at this and she was not without skills of her own. She settled back on the bench, as casual as he had been earlier. "We shall see," she offered.

The flare of a smile, although brief, suggested that she had not offended.

* * *

"I think…," Isabela fell silent, running unexpectedly out of words. She squinted up at the sky and the seagulls circling above the harbour. "I _think _I like drinking because it makes the ground sway. It's like being on a ship. And it gets you drunk. Drinking, I mean, not the ship. Or maybe that, too. Depends on the ship and the cargo. I once had a hold full of rum to deliver. You'd imagine that was a fun journey, wouldn't you? But really, I think I'd rather have had a hold full of whores… after all, they just slap you when they aren't in the mood, casks just sit there, ready and willing."

She considered for a moment. "Problem is. You know what the problem is?" She made a slow gesture with her nearly empty mug. "I hold my liquor too well. Takes _forever _to get drunk."

Entirely unappreciative of her narrative, Gully was snoring into her shoulder, a little drool running from the corner of his mouth and soaking through his scraggy beard. Retired sailors were the saddest sight. There was no light in their eyes and no spring in their step, they were forever driven to linger around the docks, buying drinks to the seafaring crowds frequenting dockside taverns. She had offered him a pity fuck, but he'd said he _wouldn't be up for it_, probably in more sense than one, the poor sod.

She had parked herself outside the _Yattaran_ to watch the sun rise over the inner harbour. Her mug was getting a little empty, but she felt heavy and lazy, unwilling to move.

A large caravel had just docked just across from her. The wood was dark, still gleaming despite having been exposed to saltwater for so long. A sea monster's head had been carved around the bow, baring its teeth into the waves. But gruesome as the visage was, the body folding back over the sides of the ship had a distinctively female shape.

First off the ship was a gargle of merchants, glad to be free and already bustling about the place, hiring carriers for their cargo and fretting over the insensitive way the sailors were handling their precious merchandise. The caravel wasn't a fast ship, Isabela could tell, but she'd be steady in any wind and difficult to take. There was enough space for a substantial crew, even with so many passengers.

Isabela emptied her mug with a deep gulp, bitter grisly bits came with the last swallow, either dirt or residue, but if she was drinking this swill for the quality she had been doing something wrong for the past few… well, _weeks. _Not constantly, of course. She took turns with the others, making sure Anders stayed put and out of trouble. Once, no doubt, Anders would have been fun to spend a night with. Now, he only tossed restlessly on the bed. More often than not, they had to tie him down so he didn't hurt anyone — himself or others — without realising it. And it was worse on those nights when, for some reason, he seemed to find real sleep. Those nights, she was stuck with herself, her own thoughts in her head, counting her scars and painting bleak pictures of the future. It made her feel like a retired sailor.

"Would you look at that?" she asked her sleeping companion. "Looks like we'll even get a mugging for free! I love those!"

The man had been the last to disembark. She had seen him stand up on the railing and watch the scuffle in the harbour not unlike she had. She wore a long coat, worn, but notably expensive even at a distance. He'd had a cowl pulled low over his face against the hard wind coming in from the sea. Only when the others were finished had he turned away and had a nearby sailor help him carry a trunk down the gangplank. His luggage, no doubt.

Now he stood on the quay beside the trunk, surveying the scene once again. A tall man, and quite confident, even though it was obvious that he was momentarily at a loss of where to go.

Isabela had spotted the group of men earlier, when the ship had docked, lingering around the periphery of the quay like piranha until someone foolish enough dipped a toe into the water. And they weren't even stupid about it, either. The man was armed, though the coat did a good job of hiding the sword from sight. A sharp and experienced eye would be able to tell by the way he stood. A sword at your hip changed your balance and your stance, how you carried yourself. As Isabela watched, she saw the man make an odd, aborted gesture with one hand, than drop his arms again. He had been about to place his hand on the hilt, no doubt, and remembered he didn't want to advertise the sword's presence.

"Now why is that?" Isabela wondered aloud. She twitched her shoulder, but Gully only grunted and nestled lower only for a small, pleased smile to appear on his sleep-slack face when he found the softer pillow of her breast.

One of the thugs split from the group and walked directly to the traveller, had the good sense to keep a respectful distance and even strike a light bow. Everything about him said, 'look at me, I'm a harmless local offering free help to lost strangers'. His friends drew closer around their prospective prey.

The traveller nodded in greeting. Casually, he reached up to grip the edge of his cowl and pull it back.

Isabela made a low, purring sound in her throat. "Gully," she said, her elbow jerking up sharply. "_Gully! _Wake up! That's Zevran's Warden. You don't want to miss this."

She put her elbow in Gully's rips with deft force. The old pirate yelped and shot upright, only to catch his head in his hand, groaning. "Whaswrong?" he slurred.

"I told you about Varric, didn't I?" Isabela asked.

"The storyteller?" Gully said, blinking in the morning light.

"Among other things," Isabela conceded. "But yes, the storyteller. He would kill for this story." She gestured with her — sadly still — empty mug. "See that guy over there?"

"'s goin't get mugged," Gully observed. It was nice to see he still had some instinct left in his sodden, land-bound brain.

"Here goes," Isabela began, changed her tone into the best Varric-the-Storyteller imitation. "On a clear morning, a stranger arrived by ship. He had hidden his face in the shadow of a hood so that people would not recognise who he was. What reason did he have for this secrecy, you ask? Ah, but that will come later. For now, he is standing on the creaking wood of the pier like a point of perfect stillness in the hustle and bustle of the great port of Val Royeaux. His arrival, however, had not gone unnoticed by the local lowlife, who foolishly thought that one lone man and a stranger to the city would be an easy victim. They could not be further from the truth, but they would learn that soon enough. As one of them spoke to the stranger, his friends came closer and closer until the stranger found himself surrounded and cut off from any escape. Far from daunted, the stranger tilts his head and faster than the eye can follow he throws his arm back and the wind caught and billowed his dark cloak to reveal sight of the sword by his hip. A beautiful weapon it was, pale as bone and in truth, that was what it was: a sword from the bones of a High Dragon. Even in the gentle morning, it radiated cold and…"

"Issa normal sword," Gully interrupted, pointing with his chin, adding, "One o' them curved ones from… whassit? Antiva?"

"Don't interrupt, my version is better," Isabela chided. "So where was I? Ah, yes. The stranger drew the legendary blade Vigilance and before his would-be muggers had time to realise what happened he had felled two of them. Such a sight he was! This was not fighting, this was _dancing _and it didn't seem to require any effort. Within moments, a dozen thugs lay by his feet…"

"I coun' _five,_" Gully said. "An' 'e's tossed one inna water."

"I was getting to that part. Anyway… so…uh, damn. Shouldn't do this drunk," Isabela said, fumbling for words and trying to remember where she was going with her narrative. "During the fight, his hood had fallen back from his face and revealed his identity for all the world to see. And what a face! Pale as porcelain and cast with the beauty of the finest Tevinter statue…"

"Issa shame witha nose, then," Gully said. "Kinda ruins 't all, no?"

Isabela leaned away from Gully and gave him a long look. "Where _is_ your sense of romance? Are you sure you were _ever_ a sailor?"

"Issa dumb tale," Gully shrugged. "Lik'd it better tha way he did it. Swordhilt to chin, guy 's down. Kick back, guy inna water. Stab sword back and twist, guy 's gutted. Hold sword like dagger, by the lower arm like, slit guy's throat. Fifth guy pisses hisself and runs off. Don' need no fancy legend-swords for tha', just good ol' fashioned skill."

Isabela frowned at him, than looked back to the dock, considering. "Doesn't matter. I'm going to like the ending best, anyway."

"How's tha'?"

"Because," Isabela announced and got to her feet a lot jerkier than normal. She blamed Gully who had kept her pinned in this cramped position for too long. The world had a nice, blurry spin to it for a moment, but settled back to normal when she took a few deep gulps of salty air. "The Queen of the Eastern Seas is going to give the Hero of Ferelden a welcome-molesting."

* * *

Leliana decided that _this _must be the dullest day _ever _in Hawke's entire life. It didn't help that she knew he was leading her on, probably having a good laugh at her expense, too. She followed him to the market, where he admired trinkets and damned _carpet-patterns _for hours. At noon, she observed him buy some greasy food at a stall and sit leisurely by a fountain to eat it. He had all the time in the world to watch the street performers at _every _corner he passed.

After that, he headed for baroness Ophélie's townhouse only to sit in the sun with her for half the afternoon, flirting. Leliana was almost grateful when they went inside and she had something to agitate her mind with, wondering how she should keep all the entrances covered all by herself. It turned out, she needn't have worried, because shortly before sunset, Hawke and Ophélie emerged from the front door so lavishly and colourfully dressed, there was no doubt they were going to a ball somewhere in the city.

Leliana debated whether it would be worth following them there. Stalking Hawke on a party was likely more entertaining than anything he had done so far, but he wouldn't believe he had shaken her so easily. More likely than not, he would give her the runaround for a lot longer before he slipped up.

In the end, Leliana concluded it wouldn't matter. She knew how to pick up his trail again easily enough and sooner or later, he would go back to wherever his friends were hiding. Which only raised an entirely different sort of question. Things were coming to a boil everywhere in Thedas, here in Orlais not least of all, and Anders role in the wider scheme of things was certainly debatable. Anders had changed the politics of Kirkwall and perhaps all of the Free Marches, but if he had a role in history or if he would be merely a footnote remained to be seen. If she found Anders, was it worth the effort to bring him in? Was it worth antagonising someone like Hawke for it? Without, and that was the point Hawke had been making, knowing anything of why he was here in the first place?

It should bother her that Hawke had been able to read and predict her so easily. He had taken one look at her and known exactly how to pique her interest, gambling on the fact that she would not sell him out before her curiosity was sated.

Abandoning her vantage point, she wondered if maybe she would have fared better following the mabari. The hound had not rejoined Hawke during the day and would most likely have returned to his other home by now. That point was moot now, of course, but certainly something to consider for next time.

She had no interest in returning to her rooms at the Grand Cathedral, preferring to mull her suspicions over in private before she was forced to share. She kept a number of rooms and apartments ready throughout the city. They served as bolt-holes in situations where such things were required, or simply when she was too tired to go all the way home. In her line of work, it paid to be ready for everything.

These rooms were located above a bakery in a quiet part of the city, but not so far from Ophélie's townhouse. It was the perfect base. Maybe she should hire a few people to keep an eye on that house, just in case.

"Mistress?"

The baker's apprentice came hurrying after her from the storefront.

"What is it?"

She stepped on the first steps of the stair, turned back to watch him approach.

"There is a message for you," he said with wide eyes, apparently almost as surprised as she was. Only a select few at the Grand Cathedral would know how to find her and would never abuse such knowledge. The apprentice handed a sealed letter.

She took it and turned it in her hand. She looked back at the apprentice, who watched her attentively.

"Thank you," she said pointedly and he took the hint. He smiled and nodded, ran off back to work.

With the door locked behind her and a candle lit in the oncoming gloom, Leliana tore open the wax and unfolded the letter. It was short message, written in a familiar hand.

_L'auberge de la Cornaline. Please come see me at your earliest. _

Something else was here, beating at the back of her head; something that Hawke had said: An old friend. Not _his _old friend, but _hers_ and she knew that hand, although she had not received letters in some time.

She hesitated for a long minute, torn between anxiety and the joy of the thrill making her spine tingle. It was wrong to like these things, she knew, she had made her peace for the most part, but she still felt a little guilty sometimes. All the world was shaking and there she was, enjoying the ride.

Justinia had once told her how the world would be on the brink of collapse regardless and as long as Leliana understood what was truly important, what harm would her pleasure do? There was enough suffering in the world, after all, there was no need to make it worse for yourself.

So the bitter taste sometimes lingered, but it wasn't allowed to paralyse her or hold her back from what needed to be done. She remembered to hold the letter up to the candle flame. The heat stung her fingertips and she let the burning paper fall into the bowl by its side. She was already gone by the time the fire had taken the rest of the paper.

* * *

_L'auberge de la Coraline_ was close to the harbour, just far enough away to justify its higher prices. It served the richer merchants who could afford to stay away from the noise and stink of the docks, but still wanted to be close to their business. Night had fallen by the time Leliana had made her way through the bustle of the city. The taproom was full and her sharp ears picked out a dozen different languages and accents. A minstrel was singing sad love-songs on a small stage at the back of the room.

The porter seemed to have been expecting her and directed her to the second floor without any prompting.

The hallway lay in silence, the noise from the taproom unable to penetrate that far. Her knock seemed too loud as if it had meaning and perhaps it did. Too much power was concentrated on Val Royeaux these days, the _wrong _kind of power. Hawke was bad enough and dangerous enough with his fingers in the game and pulling some minor noble's strings. But Hawke on his own was one thing, Hawke with his companions was another.

But Kameron Amell had an agenda all his own. If he had come here…

The door opened. Kameron let it swing wide on its own as he turned away and back into the room. "Come in," he said easily.

The room was spacious, choking on dark velvet, shimmering tassels and heavy curtains.

The pirate Leliana recognised from Kirkwall sat cross-legged and scantily dressed on the bed, cradling a mug of something hot and sweet-smelling in both her hands. She raised the mug in greeting, then relaxed back against the pillows, digging her bare feet underneath the plush blankets.

Even in shirtsleeves, Kameron Amell had something regal about him. He poised himself against the edge of the desk by the window.

Leliana hadn't seen him in five years, but time seemed to have been unable to change him. There was still the pale skin that bruised so easily— marks of fingers and teeth along his neck and the exposed skin of his chest. He had cut his hair from the long waves she remembered, giving him a severe, older look. The beauty of his face was still marred by the deformation of his nose. He had never told the story in detail, only mentioned how his nose had been broken when he was a teenager and not properly set or healed. It had always seemed a challenge, this malformed nose, to come and try to break the rest of him.

A spike of joy at seeing him was almost immediately replaced by other concerns. "I take it you are not on holiday?" she said.

"No," he agreed. "Although, I am here to see family."

"You are the one who asked Hawke to come to Val Royeaux!"

"Indeed."

Leliana found herself frowning. "You know he brought the apostate with him."

"That's actually the point," Kameron said. He shook himself free from the desk and sauntered toward her. "I may have made a mistake in letting you know I'm here at all, but I figured you would hear it anyway."

"What do you mean?" Leliana asked. She noticed the pirate had disposed of her mug and slipped to her feet, sitting at the edge of the bed. Her body had tensed, though, pulled ready to spring. It occurred to Leliana that she might not be among friends.

Kameron Amell was a man with too many hatreds. Hatred of the Circle and the mages who would let themselves cowed so easily; hatred of the Templars who dared cage him. He had let the Ferelden Circle go down in flames and sacrificed all of Amaranthine to the darkspawn when it became clear it would be unable to stand on its own. The man lauded as 'hero' had no patience for others' weaknesses and no interest in being anyone's saviour.

"Times are changing," Kameron said airily, waving his hand. Turning, he caught the pirate's gaze past Leliana's shoulder and shook his head ever so slightly.

"Your loss," the woman announced. Fabric whispered as the pirate resettled herself on the bed.

Kameron continued as if the little exchange had never happened. "We all know this is coming to a boil and sooner rather than later."

He turned to face her directly, held her pinned with his piercing eyes. "I need to know if I can trust you."

"Of course you can trust me," Leliana said. In a way, it was surprising how easily the words left her mouth and how heartfelt they were. They had rarely seen eye-to-eye in the months of travelling, but they had also saved each others' lives countless times. It required more then mere trust, more even than faith. It didn't matter what she thought of Kameron and his opinions when his achievements were beyond doubt. He had forged his band of random strangers into a cohesive unit capable of ending a Blight before it began. Whatever else had changed since then — or not changed at all — she was still a part of that.

Kameron seemed unimpressed by her assurance. "You say it like you mean it."

"I do mean it," Leliana insisted, almost insulted that he could doubt her at all.

He tilted his head to one side, regarded her like a raptor past the jagged length of his nose. "If you have to chose between the Divine and me, do you really know on whose side you'll stand?"

Time stopped. It felt like something shattering, a certainty in the world falling away without warning. He had no love for the Chantry, either, nor ever tried to hide it. He had openly laughed when she had told him about her vision. But even he couldn't quite discount how things had fallen into place in the end, though she doubted he could be made to accept a guiding hand behind events, not as long as that hand wasn't his.

Leliana took a deep breath. "You never make it easy," she said with a long-suffering sigh. She was stalling, she knew, but she didn't care. She sat down at the foot of the bed, gave the pirate a long look, trying to figure her out at least.

Kameron and Isabela knew each other, if only distantly. Zevran connected them as an old friend of Isabela's and — surprisingly for both of them — Kameron's lover of eight years. Isabela was close to Hawke and she would have come to Val Royeaux with him. There were enough connections here to weave a very tangled web, even in Val Royeaux.

"I would," Kameron said honestly. "If I could think of a way. Val Royeaux was not my first choice, but I needed to keep my cousin and his friends away from Templar scrutiny. Zev was supposed to take them to Gwaren, where they would have been save. But Ferelden's stance on magic makes it an obvious choice. The Templars locked down those roads. In a few weeks, perhaps, we can wriggle through."

"Why Val Royeaux?" she asked.

Kameron smirked a little. "No one ever looks this close to home."

"But it means dealing with me," Leliana finished. She stared at the carpet between her feet. Her mind felt curiously empty. If Kameron made her chose between Justinia and him…

She looked back up at him. "Do you think I'll have to make that choice?"

"I have no idea," he replied. He regarded her for a long moment, than seemed to reach a conclusion. He shrugged, took two long steps to the bed and sat down by her side.

"It might come to blows, if the Templars or the Seekers get wind of it," he said and his voice had taken a softer tone. "They don't need to, of course. I'm not here to wage war on the Chantry or the Tower or Orlais. None of that concerns me at the moment. I'm here to save what is left of my family and support a fellow Warden. That is all."

"Well," Leliana said. Her throat was closed and her voice came out oddly thin. "Then there will be no trouble."

"You don't need to be involved," Kameron added. "I just didn't want to go behind your back."

"But I _am _involved," Leliana pointed out. "What do I tell the Divine when she asks me?"

For the first time, Kameron allowed her to see something of the insecurity he must feel. He was rarely out of his depth and when he was, he liked to pretend otherwise, but they had known each other for a long time. He looked away from here. "Tell her the truth. That Hawke is here with Anders and that I have come to take them all off your back. Surely that is a solution for everyone?"

"What happened in Kirkwall…" Leliana began.

"I don't know what happened in Kirkwall," Kameron interrupted. "I'm sure you don't know, either. I haven't heard two accounts that can agree on more than basic facts. It'll become clear once I speak with Hawke or Zev gets back. He was there, you know, in Kirkwall."

"He is not in Val Royeaux?"

The corners of Kameron's mouth tightened. "The Crows are still hounding him. I was on my way to Antiva to assist, but this took priority."

"You are worried," Leliana observed.

"Not unduly," Kameron said. Abruptly, he got up and returned to the desk, poised himself once again, as if he needed the distance and the thicker shadows there, which obscured his features. "Well?" he asked then in a low voice. "Where do we stand, Leliana?"

The pirate at her back hadn't made a move since settling herself and Leliana had no way of knowing what she was doing. For all she know, the woman had drawn a dagger and was prepared to slit her throat, even without Kameron's consent. Leliana half-turned in her seat so she could keep her at least in sight from the corners of her eyes.

"If what you say is true," Leliana began, picking her words carefully. "Than there is no danger from any of you. It would serve the greater good to just let you be?"

"That's what I'm saying."

Leliana chewed on her lower lip. "I…," she hesitated. It was a question of trust and she realised that she didn't _trust _him like this. The situation was so widely different than anything she had been through with him. She had had suspicions about him before, hadn't she? After he had come back with Andraste's Ashes and was so adamant she needn't concern herself with its further fate. She would trust him with her life, but she was trusting him with the lives of many people, most of whom meant nothing to him.

"I will keep an eye on you," she finished. "These things happening now, no one can control them. If something goes wrong, I'll need to know. And if it becomes necessary I will tell the Divine." She stopped herself again, searching for words. "If it becomes necessary, I will talk to the Templars."

She looked at him. "Are we good?"

He let her hang in the silence, left with all her doubt swirling about her, with the unknown factor of the pirate at her back and the way it was so _damn hard _to face him of all people and think what it would be like to have him as an enemy.

"Good enough," he finally said, releasing her.

* * *

"Thank you for not interfering," Kameron said once Leliana had left.

Isabela snorted. "Friendship is a fickle bitch, I've been there."

Kameron had not moved from the desk, still stuck in some darker mood — or maybe that was just because he was still sitting in the shadows.

"Tell me about Hawke," Kameron said. Isabela frowned. She had just been about to drape herself across the bed and incite him to rejoin her. He had taken a bath and washed away all the glorious smell of seawater and wind, claiming he didn't smell of 'freedom' as she said and more like 'not washing for two weeks'. Isabela didn't think the two things were mutually exclusive.

Maker, she wanted back on a ship before she was all shrivelled up and boring like Gully.

"Hawke?" she echoed. "Great stamina and _very _nimble fingers."

"He's my _cousin_."

"_Distant _cousin, somewhat removed," she chuckled. "There are plenty of places where you'd be married with a gaggle of children. Well, sort of, anyway, you get the idea. But the cousin part? No one cares for that."

"I meant what sort of man he is," Kameron said and lifted his hand before she had time to draw breath. "Without length and circumference, if you please. If I feel inadequate I'll have to drag him to the White Spire myself."

Isabela laughed, "I think you don't… all right, all right, stop with the glaring."

"Zev had only time to write a short message," Kameron said. "I'd rather know a little more about this relative before I throw my lot in with him."

Isabela gave a pillow a little kick to make it slither forward on the sheets, she lay forward on her belly, wrapping both arms around the pillow and resting her chin on top of it. "A little late for that, isn't it?"

"We all work with what we have."

"Hmm," Isabela made noncommittally. "Tell you what, you get back here and I'll gossip about Hawke to your heart's content. And _then_ we go another round, just to make _absolutely_ sure Zevran didn't ruin you for women."

* * *

**References:**

"Eh bien, dansez maintenant" ("Very well, now dance.") — The Grasshopper and the Ant by Jean de la Fontaine

"From morn to night, my friend" — Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti

"Wuffles" — Discworld, Terry Pratchett

"Yattaran" — Captain Harlock's first mate


	2. A Heart for Every Fate

**Chapter 3: A Heart for Every Fate**

* * *

Everything was falling apart; the very bones were beginning to show in their little fellowship.

Aveline had been the first to leave, though not without wrestling with her conscience beforehand. It had began with Knight-Captain Cullen letting it be known that he was willing to offer her amnesty. She would not be judged guilty by association alone and her long and faithful service to Kirkwall awarded her at least as much. She would have to quit the guard, of course, but she could come home. In the end, Hawke had stepped in and made it quite clear he appreciated Aveline's loyalty to him, but he'd very much prefer her loyalty to Donnic and the people of Kirkwall. A place that needed a voice of reason more than anything and Aveline's level-headedness would help do something good.

Varric had eventually joined her on the journey back. He was a child of the big city, he couldn't stay away forever and Hawke would never ask him. They had had letters from him since and somehow, the dwarf had wriggled himself back into Kirkwall's good graces. He helped them, too, in this way.

The next to go would be Isabela. The sea was calling and hiding didn't agree with her. Every day she spent more and more time drinking in that filthy dockside tavern of hers, only to be grumpy and hungover whenever she came in at all.

Merrill had ran with Hawke because she was Dalish. Because the thought of being set adrift all alone in the world was unbearable to her. With the death of Marethari, she had lost what tenuous connection she still had with her and his contacts was one thing, Aveline as a respected member of Kirkwall's backbone was another, but no one cared about an elf — and a blood mage apostate. There was no going back for her, no going _home. _

She hated living in the alienage in Val Royeaux. It was too packed, too dark and with too many people. She was wilting, as Varric had once said. It was painful to watch, but how could she be saved? Moreover, Merrill had set herself up for her own doom. She did not deserve to fall because of what Anders had done, but her ultimate doom would be unavoidable.

Anders did not know what was keeping Fenris and he had no right to ask him such a question. If he had to guess he would say that for all his talk of slavery, Fenris needed someone to follow. It was only a question of time until he realised that Sebastian in Starkhaven was a leader, too, and one whose opinions agreed with him far better than Hawke's did.

In the end, there would only be Hawke left. Hawke and Anders and madness.

Even so, the tension was terrible, especially while Hawke was with Ophélie. Fenris and Merrill both worked at the young baroness' townhouse when they weren't guarding Anders in their hovel in the alienage.

The hours of the day dragged on under Fenris' hostile gaze or Merrill's worn cheerfulness. Isabela was hungover whenever she was there, monosyllabic and grumpy. At least she neither taunted him nor attempted to cheer him up. They hadn't been in Val Royeaux for more than two weeks, but it felt like a syrupy eternity. It was nearly unbearable, but he could not think of a way out, an escape, for any of them.

Hawke believed in the flimsy promise Zevran had made, or at least Hawke had somehow convinced himself he believed in it. The promise of a future in safety, perhaps even a cure for Anders' deteriorating mind, all of it, based on nothing more substantial than the words of a former Crow assassin. You _could _built on sand, but you shouldn't expect your foundations to hold.

When Merrill returned in the evening, Anders said, "Where is Hawke?" before he could stop himself. He hated the sound of his own voice, the jealousy eating at him and the way he had no right to justify it even before himself. He had no claims on Hawke and no right to demand any sort of fidelity.

"Taking Lady Ophélie to a masked ball," Merrill explained. She rummaged in the larder, scrunching up her nose. "You could at least have started making dinner," she said. "I'm not your cook."

"A ball?" Anders asked. He clenched his teeth before he said anymore and pushing wild fantasies from his mind with all his might.

"I hear these are popular in Orlais," Fenris said drily as he got to his feet and pulled on his coat. "Perhaps they'll even dance."

Anders let his head fall back against the wall and welcomed the faint, dull pain it caused, distracting him for just a moment. "Taunt me all you wish," he said. "I'm an easy target."

"You have only yourself to blame."

Merrill had pulled vegetables out and had began chopping them on the table, ignoring the exchange, but now she looked up, narrowed her large eyes at Fenris. "Where are you going?" she asked, sounding alarmed.

"Since you are here, I'm sleeping elsewhere tonight," Fenris grated. "I'm not spending the night with a blood mage and an abomination."

"You can't go out there armed like that," Merrill pointed out. "It's forbidden in the alienage. You'll attract attention."

"I'm not going out there unarmed," Fenris pointed out.

"Maker's breath," Anders grunted. "Just conceal it. It's not that difficult."

Fenris tensed and seemed about to twist around and strike, whether he would have gone for Merrill or Anders was hard to tell. Instead, he merely turned his head to give them both a cold glare. His broadsword was far too large to conceal, he had left it behind when going out before, but now he had it strapped to his back. What if this was the actual moment Fenris left? What better time to go than when Hawke was occupied. Fenris wouldn't have to tell him anything, or even say good-bye.

Fenris stood stiffly, looming in the tiny room.

Anders felt Merrill's gaze unexpectedly come to rest on him and was surprised to find she was looking at him, as if he still could somehow be a guide for the right course of actions. He would never understand the girl, as long as he lived. Truly.

"Why don't you take the other sword?" Merrill asked. "Like you usually do?"

"Because he doesn't plan to come back," Anders answered. "Isn't that right, Fenris?"

Fenris turned around. "I owe you nothing," he pointed out.

It was true, of course, but still Fenris abruptly broke into motion again, loosened the straps of the sword and leaned it against the wall by the door and picked up the smaller blade from its place. Strapped to his hip, the cloak hid the weapon well enough. His shoulders gave away his tension as he reached for the door without deigning either of the others with another look.

With his back to them, he said, "But I have you know, you are wrong."

He pulled the door open with more force than necessary, the lyrium tattoos flaring up for a moment in a dull glow through his clothing. The dry wood protested and the hinges shivered around their nails. Fenris would have rushed out with the same momentum and slammed the door closed behind him, but he stopped again in the doorway, his posture turned from merely tense into wary and ready to spring.

Both Merrill and Anders were alert immediately. Merrill put the kitchen knife down and Anders felt it as she began to pull on her power. It made him sick every time, closed his throat down at the vile taste of her magic, but it was instinct in the same way he himself was reaching for his inner reserves of willpower. He struggled to his feet and wondered how they could even hope to fight in a such a confined space.

"What a welcome," Isabela observed, stepping to the doorway.

"I was just leaving," Fenris pointed out. They faced each other in the doorway for a moment, then Fenris relented and stepped back, allowing Isabela to enter the room, revealing the man behind her.

Anders had time to sense the cautious incomprehension in Fenris and Merrill, he even had time to recognise Kameron Amell and to form the thought that would have identified him as an ally, but his senses were overwhelmed. Merrill's blood magic was difficult to bear, but he was used to her presence and while there was no excuse for dealing with demons at all, Kameron carried his powers in a different way. With him, it wasn't just a faint scent, but an aura that was almost tangible as it surrounded him. Festering, unrepentant, so utterly beyond redemption he left Anders no choice at all.

Faintly, he heard Isabela's curse and saw Merrill move to interject him, but none of it mattered, because the power surged from beneath his feet and through his body, his fingers tingling with it before the lightning arched from his hands. It sizzled past Fenris and Isabela, Anders felt the resistance of their bodies but couldn't comprehend if he hurt them. The power smashed into Kameron's chest and threw him back.

Anders snapped his other arm up, tiny sparks already jumping between his fingers, but something heavy suddenly pushed his arm down and the lightning discharged into the ground, blackening the floorboards.

Someone yelled in his ear. Others were yelling somewhere further off. Enemies. He was surrounded by _enemies_.

He hit the wall, hard, and his vision skittered away.

"Control it!" someone yelled close by. "Anders!"

Hands closed on his shoulders and pushed him down. Breath that smelled of rum and callused palms, familiar at least. Yes, _control. _Anders went limp, while the thoughts in his mind coursed in hopeless chaos, as he struggled to find that sense of self to cling to. The hands holding him down slowly let go, careful in case his compliance was but a passing moment.

"What a welcome indeed."

Anders concentrated on breathing. Isabela drew back from him, but stayed close, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Warn a girl next time," she said, patting Anders' knee.

"…sorry," Anders said past clenched teeth. He cracked his eyes open again and surveyed the room.

Fenris had pulled the door closed and was leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest while Merrill stood like a guardian stone on the other side of Anders by the bed. Only Kameron seemed unperturbed as he stood in the centre of the room. A tiny line of smoke curled up from the ground beside his boot where Anders' second lightning had failed. Kameron's shirt showed a prominent black stain on the centre of his chest and part of the fabric had burned away to the fine chain-mail beneath. It must be enchanted, because even Kameron wouldn't have been able to shield himself this quickly.

Kameron turned a little on his heel, inclining his head towards Merrill and Fenris.

"I'm Kameron Amell," he introduced himself. "I'm afraid I'm the one responsible for putting you in this place."

"That credit goes to _Anders," _Fenris said, saying the name as if it was a curse.

"For once, your hatred is misplaced," Anders said, staring at Kameron. "He is a better target." Anders pushed his chin forward and bared his teeth in what would have been a snarl if he hadn't felt bone-weary. "You are a blood mage."

Kameron flexed the fingers on his left hand, just enough for the light to catch the metal claw on his little finger. Anders had rarely seen such rings. There had been a few in display cases in the Tower, but no one outside of Tevinter would flaunt their blood magic in this way.

Kameron said, "Indeed I am. And it didn't matter to you when we were in Amaranthine. It didn't matter to Justice, either. You do remember that, do you?"

"Things changed," Anders grated. His head hurt. He didn't know if it was from hitting the wall or from forcing down Justice's influence like this. He didn't _want _to fight this. Everything about Kameron was _wrong. _He was anathema to everything… to everything… he had… ever… believed…? But that was untrue, wasn't it? It hadn't mattered those years ago, had it?

"Another one," Fenris said. "You crawl out of every hole, it seems."

Kameron turned to face Fenris fully and held the silence between them.

"I'm much worse than you think," he said finally. "I recognise the markings you have. I studied the technique, but I didn't think I'd ever see it. Would you like to test it against the enchantment in my chain-mail?"

"Don't tempt me, mage."

Kameron spread out his arms in invitation. "I'm the teryn of Gwaren and a Grey Warden of the Fifth Blight. The dwarves call me Junyragal and the Dalish Mi'lin. I'm not just _any_ mage, _elf_."

Fenris narrowed his eyes. "Your titles impress no one."

The bed heaved as Isabela shifted forward, ready to spring. "Boys," she said with tired humour. "I never thought I'd hear myself say that, but this really is not the time to figure out whose balls are bigger."

"I agree," Fenris said. He shook himself from the door and reached for the broadsword again. He didn't strap it to his back, however, only kept it in his hand. It just might pass, in the darkness of the alienage if he kept it close to his body and under the cloak.

Fenris movements were jerkier than they had been before, tension pulled nearly to the breaking point. He tore the door open again and fled into the night without another word. The door bounced against the frame, pulled askew from its rusty hinges.

"Can we just let him go like that?" Kameron asked.

"He won't bring the Templars down on us," Merrill said as she leaned with her weight to the door to make it snap closed. "At least, I don't think he will."

Kameron hesitated. He had not moved at all, simply stood in the gloomy room, filling the centre with the dull silver of the chain-mail and expensive velvet of his coat.

"He won't be back," Anders pointed out. He tried breathing through his mouth, but of course that didn't help. You couldn't actually _smell _blood magic, it was just a metaphor, a subconscious translation of sensing something revolting. He fixed his gaze on Kameron. "A Grey Warden of the Fifth Blight?" he asked.

Kameron smiled a little and the mood shifted under the change. Merrill returned to her work of chopping vegetable, but it didn't escape Anders that her attention remained elsewhere.

"The Wardens have _politely _asked I resign as Commander of the Grey," Kameron explained. "They weren't pleased about the Architect. Which, incidentally, is also the reason why I couldn't interfere on your behalf. I didn't find out they'd driven you away until it was far too late."

Anders let his head fall to the wall again. "So at least once you had to answer for what you did."

Isabela put her elbow into Anders' side, although not hard enough to hurt. "He's here to help," she pointed out.

"You've shown your gratitude already, so why should I?" Anders said and grimaced.

Isabela gave a dramatic sigh, though it sounded forced and annoyed. "You never play nice anymore," she complained.

While they talked, Kameron had taken off the coat and draped it carelessly across the bench by the table and set down beside it. He stretched out his legs and leaned back with his arms on the table, arrogantly relaxed despite the hostility that had greeted him. He regarded Anders and Isabela for a long moment, but than looked at Merrill.

"You are a mage?" he asked.

Merrill, who had scarcely even been pretending to be dealing with the food, lowered the knife. "Yes, I am."

"What are your strengths?"

"I was First to the Keeper," she explained. "Marethari taught me almost everything I know." She hesitated, the expression on her face wavered between sadness and fond memories. "She was… not always a patient teacher, but I learned a lot."

"Keeper magic?" Kameron asked. "I have not much experience with that. Can you anchor a vision of the Fade with your magic?"

"It depends," Merrill said. "You'll have to show me, so I know what you need me to do."

Kameron looked back at Anders. "I want to try and separate my two old friends from each other."

Of course he would, Anders thought wearily. "It can't be done," he said, not expecting the remark to carry much weight. Zevran had told them this was what Kameron meant to do, why he was coming at all. Anders knew few mages as powerful as Kameron — his freedom to do as he pleased played a large role in it — but even he could not do the impossible. Spirit possession was final according to everything Anders had ever seen, even in Tevinter.

"It might be possible," Kameron pointed out mildly. "I have seen similar things before, though never in this extreme. I'll have to go into the Fade and talk to Justice directly."

"It won't work," Anders reiterated. He shook his head and made a limp, dismissive gesture with one hand. "But you'll have fun wallowing in your blood magic, playing with demons. I won't stop you."

Kameron looked back at Merrill. "You are willing to use Blood Magic? That changes things."

"It's just magic," Merrill said. "You have to be careful, but that's always true, anyway."

Anders sighed, "No one ever listens."

* * *

Ophélie let her glittering shawl slip from her shoulders as she stepped to the fireplace and stood facing the fire. She was small, but slender and was well aware that her dress would be rendered nearly invisible against the flames, drawing her shape in tantalising perfection.

Her handmaiden had left the carafe of red wine by the table beside the fireplace to allow the wine to warm. Ophélie reached for it now, held the heavy glass in her hand and considered doing something dramatic with it. Wryly, she decided she hadn't been long enough in Val Royeaux for such a crass display and instead poured herself a glass.

Turning back, she found that not only had Hawke paid no attention to her, he wasn't even in the room any longer. He had ditched his boots, one after the other, obviously while walking. His coat had slipped from a stool to the floor and the brocaded vest he had worn lay on the ground by the balcony door. She could just about make out his shape outside where he leaned on the balustrade and looked out over the garden and the city beyond.

As always, he had been an impeccable escort. Courteous in his manners, witty in his conversation and fluid in his dancing. There was no mistake at all in how he upheld his part of the deal. Zevran had been vague about what would be required of her, saying only she would need to offer Hawke and his elven companions positions in her house and in turn, Hawke would aid her in her attempts to reclaim her inheritance. Although, if she was honest with herself, at this point in time, she preferred keeping her townhouse here in Val Royeaux and Hawke by her side.

Because that was the point she had been struggling with, however much she would rather deny it, but she wanted to have _him. _Not just this playacting, flawless as it was.

She sauntered after him, cradling the cool glass on her cheek.

"I have been thinking," she said.

"Give yourself credit," he said lightly without looking at her. "It doesn't happen quite so rarely you need to mention it."

There were times, of course, when she didn't exactly _need _him to be witty. She usually let it pass. Nothing good would come of arguing. "I don't pretend I understand what is going on in your life."

He laughed. A deep, heartfelt laugh that somehow lacked even the faintest traces of humour. It stopped as abruptly as it had began. "My Lady," Hawke said. "I don't pretend I understand what's going on in my life, either. Trust me, the novelty of _that _wears off."

"It's troubling you, is it not?" she asked.

He looked at her from the side. His hair had fallen loose from it's perfect curls and fell across one side of his face, giving him a dashing look. "Care to get to your point?" he asked, not unkindly, but his patience was notably growing thin. He rarely allowed her to see this side of him.

"You could abandon whatever it is you are doing and stay with me instead," she said. She had hoped to phrase it more carefully so he found less cause to reject her, but he hadn't given her that chance. She tried to cover for her blunder by putting her glass away and shifting to stand behind him. She was too small to make it a good fit, pressing against his back like this. She wrapped one arm around his waist and stroked the other down his chest until to where his careless undressing had exposed the edge of his hipbone.

She was delighted to find him leaning into her touch, but only for a moment. He caught her hand in a grip so light she barely felt it, just strong enough to pull her hand away from him. He was pinned between her and the balustrade so his body brushed hers as he turned. She managed to hold his gaze for no more than an instant, than he stepped to the side, outside her reach.

He gave a slanted smile. "I may have overdone the _mousseux," _he shrugged apologetically. "You will forgive me if I don't stay tonight and embarrass myself."

Ophélie let her hands fall by her side and didn't try to follow him inside. She watched as he picked up his vest and used the respite to chew on her lip and let her thoughts chase each other in her mind. She thought, _There is no need to run, _but she was certain such a remark would only make things worse.

Hawke was at his first boot when she heard the noise from the hallway, voices and heavy footsteps cresting up on her bedroom door. Ophélie pushed herself away from the balustrade and entered the room, coming to stand close to Hawke once again.

There was a slight knock on the door, but before she even had the time to take a breath, the door was pushed open. The first thing she saw was her _femme de chambre _and the tall elf Hawke had brought with him, both trying to pile through the door first. Behind them, a doorman and more servants were adding to the confusion.

Fenris eventually won and walked in. He wore a dusty, grey coat over once fine, but now shabby armour. He carried a large broadsword in one hand and thank the Maker he had kept it sheathed while forcing his way through her house.

"I'm so sorry!" the _femme de chambre _gushed, wavering between indignant anger and being cowed by the imposing elf. "Madame, I tried…!"

Irritated, Fenris fixed his eyes on Hawke. "We must talk," he said gravelly.

"This is outrageous!" the doorman snapped, finally wedging himself past the _femme de chambre. _He bent his head sharply at Ophélie. "Please forgive the intrusion, I'll deal with it."

He reached with his hand for Fenris.

"I wouldn't do that," Hawke said sharply and the doorman's hand stopped in midair. "Unless you've always wanted to be known as 'the one-armed doorman'."

The doorman hesitated. Hawke looked quite ridiculous with just one boot on, but the doorman seemed unwilling to cross him. The man looked from Fenris to Hawke and finally to Ophélie.

The baroness pulled an entirely unladylike grimace, but waved her hand. "It's all right. I'll be talking with all of you _later. _Leave us alone for now."

There was a long minute before anyone moved. The _femme de chambre _curtsied, made a hasty gesture with her hand at the doorway. The servants who had gathered outside shuffled around in the hallway, getting out of the way. The _femme de chambre _ushered the doorman through the door, mumbled another apology to her mistress and pulled the door closed as quietly as possible.

Fenris filled the ensuing silence with a glower. He said, "Hawke."

Ophélie almost jumped when she felt Hawke's hand wind around her shoulders, but the moment didn't last. "Would you leave us alone?" he asked, with so much charm in the request, the affront barely registered. "It's my bedroom!"

Hawke pushed her forward gently. "I'm sure that's someone's dirty fantasy," he remarked and steered her to the door. "Enjoy."

With any luck, at least the servants would have scattered by now and she would be spared the awkwardness of being thrown out of her own room. Hawke opened the door and manoeuvred her outside.

TRENN

Hawke kept his hand on the handle for a long moment after closing it behind Ophélie. His expression darkened markedly as he stared at Fenris.

"Have a damn good reason for this," he said with an unspoken threat somewhere in the charged air between them.

Not for the first time, Fenris wondered what bound him to Hawke at all. Nothing about the man seemed to be making sense. In the beginning, he had put it down to half a lifetime of experience being purged from his memories. Perhaps, he had reasoned, Hawke wasn't so special, after all, perhaps Fenris had only forgotten about it. It would have made sense, but the longer he stayed in Kirkwall and followed Hawke on one insane adventure after another, he learned differently. Hawke _was _exceptional and although Fenris found himself disagreeing with so much of what the man thought and did, he still found himself pulled along and _willingly _pulled along.

Fenris regarded Hawke, took in his state of undress and the disheveled hair and some remnant glitter smeared on one cheekbone.

"This is beneath you," Fenris said.

It was the wrong thing to say, of course, for many reasons. Not least of all because it seemed to be the push Hawke needed to mask himself once again, to pull some kind of jaded casualness over his naked features. He pulled his eyebrows up. "Oh dear," he said. "And you trek all the way here just to save my virtue? Non-existent as it is? Now, the question is, do I feel honoured or offended?"

"I'm not joking," Fenris growled. "The abom…" he stopped and, out of respect for Hawke, corrected himself. "Anders is not worth your abasement"

"I'm leaning towards 'offended', you know," Hawke remarked. He shook his head and walked across the room to pick up his second boot. "Six years and you've learned nothing from Isabela about sex." He looked up at Fenris. "Unless you are, in fact, here for a different reason?"

It had always been difficult to keep anything from Hawke. Fenris closed his eyes for a moment, collecting his thoughts. Suddenly it became impossible to just stand there under Hawke's glittering gaze. It made him feel like a traitor, for being there, for thinking as he did. That Hawke had always accepted his views just made it worse.

Fenris twisted around, took a few long steps and squared his shoulders in an effort to unclench his muscles.

"Your relative has arrived," he said finally.

"The Hero?" Hawke asked and Fenris was unsure if there was irony in his tone or not.

Fenris twisted around again, faced Hawke. "I cannot stay here," he said, deciding to do away with any flowery words. They were both adults, they should be able to handle the bare truth. "Magic has brought us here and now magic is supposed to save us, I cannot believe that."

"He stepped on your toes, didn't he?" Hawke observed.

Fenris put his head back as if stung. "Yes, belittle me all you like," he snapped. "It's not as if we are friends or anything!"

"Friends? Don't be stupid," Hawke grinned. "We don't like each other. We are more like family."

Maybe that even made sense. Meeting Varania had given him nothing, no insight into what it meant to have a family. All he knew was that he wasn't Hawke's _friend_, but they were linked nonetheless.

"I need to get away," Fenris finally said and the words felt almost like a relief. "I can't look at … Anders one more night without strangling him and his self-pity. I can't look at Merrill and her naivete and wonder when she'll transform and try to rip my heart out. This Hero, he is much worse than any abomination. I don't expect you to understand what I see when I look at him."

Hawke's face was serious again. He dropped the boot and walked to the table by the fireplace. He turned his back to Fenris as he pouted himself a glass of dark red wine. "I think I have some idea," he said, still with his back turned. It gave both of them some privacy of thought, freed them from having to control their expressions and from revealing too much of what neither wanted to show.

Fenris was almost certain that Hawke needed it more than he did, but he was grateful nonetheless. Relaxing a little, Fenris found a heavy desk to lean his hip against, watching Hawke's darkened shape in front of the dancing flames.

"It's hubris and hunger," Fenris said. "I've watched too much of that in Tevinter. It's ruthless, dangerous. It will destroy everything. I cannot watch it happen, not even for you."

Hawke chuckled lowly, but this time the sound had nothing aggravating. "If I bared my soul to you," he said slowly, humour all turned inward and needle-thin. "Could you stop yourself from striking?"

And quite suddenly, not seeing Hawke's face made everything _worse. _How did you know if the man across the room was telling the truth? How could you assess him when the look of his eyes was given to the flames instead? Did you wait until the fire began to sizzle?

"Hawke…"

"I envy you," Hawke said.

"That's… not what expected," Fenris replied honestly. "Why?"

"Because you get to live without memories."

Fenris bared his teeth in a reaction that was pure instinct. He _knew _Hawke didn't mean it like this. He caught himself immediately, made sure his voice betrayed nothing of what he felt. He said, "That's not true. I remember pain."

A tiny shudder ran the length of Hawke's shoulders before he moved. He emptied the wine and left the empty glass on top of the fireplace. When he turned around, his face was blank but calm, controlled, even with a hint of humour in it.

"I can give you money," Hawke said. "If you want to leave, but beyond that, you know that's all I can do."

"I don't need money," Fenris said, harsher than he had meant to.

Hawke tilted his head and something merciless was in his gaze. "I can't absolve you, that's not my job. Make your choices and stand by them, that's all I'll ask."

"Like you chose to stand with Anders?"

Hawke made no answer as his jaw tightened. "How much more should I lose until it's enough?"

He gave Fenris no time to answer, cut him off with a quick, dismissive gesture with one hand. "Forget I said that," he said, visibly pulling himself together. "Although it's good to know you've got a bite inhibition there."

Despite himself, Fenris had to laugh, though his throat felt parched. "Only among family," he said.

Hawke's smile, this time, almost reached his eyes. "Are you sure you don't want the money? It's not like it wouldn't come out of Ophélie's purse and she gets off cheap anyway."

Fenris nodded slowly. "I'll take it, then" he said, fixed Hawke. "But I'll pay you back."

He didn't need to burn all the bridges with Hawke, Anders wasn't worth it. As long as a debt stood between them Fenris could always find an excuse to come back, an excuse to let the connection not frazzle and fade with time. Wounds would heal with time, or so Fenris hoped. He wasn't sure if he believed it, but he knew he wanted to. Maybe it was enough, just this once.

"I thank you," Fenris said, more like an afterthought, _for not prying, for not arguing and most of all:_ _For not making me say that aloud. _

* * *

Poetry demanded that Fenris vanish into the darkness of the empty street. But the street-lamps were brightly lit and although it was late, people were still about; going to or returning from some feast. Musicians still occupied some corners and the food stalls were still busy selling their wares to passerbys. Others were keeping to the shadows, edging along the tall walls of mansion and following their own clandestine goals.

Fenris felt severed. Alone. More alone than he had ever been. He had forgotten how to handle it in his years i Kirkwall. It was time he learned it again.

Poetry demanded that all farewells be sudden.

* * *

**References/Translations**

"a heart for every fate" — To Thomas Moore, Lord Byron

"a farewells should be sudden" — Sardanapalus, Lord Byron

"mousseux" — (french) sparkling wine

"femme de chambre" — (french) handmaiden (note: I'm not entirely sure this is the correct position. Translations are all over the place for this one. A femme de chambre is of lower rank than a lady-in-waiting, but above the position as a lady's maid)

"Junyragal" — Kingmaker (constructed using set-pieces from different franchises. 'Jun' means 'King' in the Dragon Tongue of Skyrim; 'yr' is taken from DAO's 'desh**yr**' and '-ag' and '-al' are taken from Tolkien)

"Mi'lin" — 'Blood Blade' in Elvish

* * *

**Thank you for reading! **


	3. The Night Walked Down the Sky

**Chapter 3: The Night Walked Down the Sky**

* * *

As left hand of the Divine, Leliana was welcome in Justinia's private chapel whenever she felt the need to withdraw from the world. The large cathedral was beautiful, but it awed too much, overshadowed your personal concerns and while that offered also a kind of peace, it helped little to sort your thought when the storms of the world had thrown them in turmoil.

It was here that Leliana found herself in those odd hours between night and morning, having tried to find sleep in her hideout and than wandering the streets, looking for distraction — or a way out. Pointless exercises, all of them, when the way to solace had always been right there.

The chapel was empty and silent, bathed in soft golden light from countless candles. Only two rows of pews were set before a marble statue of Andraste who would look down on the faithful with wakeful, but gentle eyes, serene, but understanding. This Andraste understood something of the ways of the world, or perhaps that had only been the artist behind her image.

Leliana loved this statue, even if it made her feel a little guilty sometimes, for assuming a kinship between her as a lowly bard and the great prophet before her.

Tonight, however, the calm would not come. As she kneeled in the pew, the thoughts in her mind would not still. They skittered like insects, half-finished before she could grasp at them, fleeting and disconcerting. In vain, she waited for her mind to settle, for the peace to come. If only she could even name the source of her anxiety. There was Kameron, of course, always a source of insecurity. And there was Hawke, more unknowable than even the Warden. This was not the problem, or at least not all of it. There was no immediate danger from either of them, after all, nothing that would force her to fear and then act on that fear.

She was so lost in the maze of her own mind, she missed the quiet hiss of the door as it opened and closed, failed to hear the whisper of silk as it brushed over the marbled floor. Only when someone joined her in the pew did Leliana lift her head.

Justinia was a strange woman, not unlike the image of Andraste in her own chapel. Kind and honest, but aware of the intricacies of the world in which her voice had weight and her decisions would affect the lives of millions of people. The Divine's face was serious, more so in the last few months, but the lines there were marks of smiles and laughter. Sometimes Leliana feared to see it change as the years went by, but Justinia had an inner light and a strength which hardships had so far failed to erode.

"What troubles you?" Justinia asked gently.

Leliana had to look away then, not quite ashamed, but lost and indecisive. Kameron's words echoed in her mind. _If you have to chose… _

She must have been silent for longer than she had thought, because Justinia spoke again. She said, "I see. I will not press you, you know that."

"I…" Leliana began and she didn't know herself how the sentence would have continued.

"No," Justinia interrupted. "I mean it. If there is something I do not need to know, then I _do not need to know. _It is that simple."

"What if I'm not sure?" Leliana asked.

Justinia smiled a little. "Then you will wrestle with your conscience for a little while and, in the end, you will make the right decision."

The Divine got to her feet smoothly. "Perhaps sleeping would help, Leliana. Your troubles, I'm sure, will still be there when you wake up, but you'll be far better equipped to deal with them."

* * *

Hawke made all the difference. The moment he stepped into the dirty, stinking, tiny room, nothing seemed quite as unbearable anymore. Merrill's bloodmagic and Isabela's shallowness, even Kameron Amell's aggravating smugness, none of it _mattered_.

Even now, Hawke's very presence calmed Anders' fraying nerves and angry thoughts. For a few precious moments, as long as Hawke was there, he could allow himself to hope for peace and quiet and a life, _any _life beyond this. He had clung to that belief for all the years since Hawke had walked into his clinic, almost from the very first time he had ever seen him. Sometimes, Anders could barely believe that Hawke had _not _made that difference in the end. For all his promise, for all his strength and stubbornness, the tide had washed Hawke away as it had all of them.

Hawke had straddled the bench by the table, legs folded along the sides to accommodate their length on the smaller elvish furniture. On the other end of the bench, Kameron sat equally relaxed, as if he owned the place. They were facing each other in an odd stillness, the profile of their faces outlined in front of the grimy-dark wall behind them. An image of compare-and-contrast, different and yet startlingly similar. It was a strange thought, to realise that the diamondine ruthlessness of Kameron Amell might be made of the same components as Hawke's fierce cleverness.

Isabela had muttered something about _not minding if she came between them _but the mood had failed to lighten. Both Isabela and Merrill had taken flanking positions again, Isabela on the bed with Anders, Merrill sitting precariously balanced on the footboard. Between them, they were probably capable to stop him, even if Justice took over completely and decided everyone in the room deserved to be slaughtered. Anders didn't _feel _like that might happen, not while Hawke was there, but he couldn't fault them for not taking any chances, especially after his lapse with Kameron earlier.

Wuffles was also there, halfway between guarding Anders and guarding the others _from _Anders. The dog was quiet and barely moved at all, watching the room with attention, but knowing he shouldn't disturb.

Tea had been stewing over the cooking fire, but it had been forgotten. The fire had burned down to chunks of still glowing coal and ashes and the had cooled to a dark, bitter liquid. The night was beginning to feel old and emptied out; the very air was both uncomfortably cold and stale.

Fenris' absence was gaping in the room, even though he would hardly have made any of this any easier. With Fenris, another piece of them had fallen away, another pebble shifting down the mountainside, tearing loose what it might.

"It's important to understand how demonic possession works," Kameron was saying in a voice suited to a Tower classroom and a host of eager students. "When a mage is possessed, their mind is overwhelmed by the demon until there is nothing left of the mage. That's when the transformation happens and we are left with an abomination. However, some demons don't burn out the mage's mind as quickly. Hunger and Rage have no restraint, they take and consume. Desire or Sloth demons, on the other hand, enter into something closer to a symbiotic bond with the mage."

"What about Pride?" Anders challenged. Merrill shuffled, stung by the barb even if it hadn't been aimed at him. She glanced away from them for a moment, staring at the floor — or more likely at an entirely different time and place.

Kameron gave him a thin smile. "Because you think that's mine?"

"Seems a good match," Anders said.

"I don't like dealing with demons," Kameron said. "Their arrogance and condescendence towards mortals is not something I'm willing to take. Besides, there is nothing they can offer me that I don't already have."

"Thinking that just makes you more likely to fall."

Kameron returned his look evenly and just as calmly said, "So what is your solution? Should I volunteer for Tranquility?"

Anders jolted in his seat, didn't know if he would have sprung from his cross-legged position on the bed or not, even with Isabela's arm shooting forward and catching him on the chest. Annoyed, Anders pushed her away.

"That's _not _what I was saying!" Anders snapped. He flexed his shoulders and forced himself to press his back into the wall, using the solidity of the wooden boards to anchor him.

"No, it wasn't," Kameron agreed. "I know that."

Hawke cleared his throat quite pointedly and pulled everybody's attention back to him. Kameron brought his head back to face him and the painting of their faces realigned itself into the nature of a tale which Varric would have been proud to tell. _The Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall faced each other…_

"Just so I get this straight," Hawke began. "Anders and Justice are all mixed up, but they still have their own personalities and that's why it possible to separate them?"

"In layman's terms, yes."

Hawke nodded slowly in mockery of contemplation. "Something tells me if it were quite as easy as that, we wouldn't have the whole Templar versus mage thing to deal with. _If _you could separate a demon from a mage without hassle…"

"Justice is _not _a demon," Anders interjected.

Hawke arched an eyebrow and merely said, "He's been behaving like one. Maybe the Dalish have it right and there really isn't much of a difference."

"Spirits and demons are each aspects of existence, different in their vocation, but not their nature," Kameron agreed.

Merrill pulled herself from her revery with visible effort. She looked up and stared at Kameron from her wide eyes and nodded. "That's it exactly. Everyone has a different personality, creatures of the Beyond are just less flexible about it than we are."

"You _would _say that, wouldn't you?" Anders asked. "It must help you sleep at night…"

Very softly, Hawke said, "Anders."

Anders let his mouth snap closed with a sound that echoed in the room. Hawke had barely looked at him since coming in, said nothing beyond commonplace greeting. Anders had always known he would lose Hawke one way or the other, but it still stung.

Sudden silence hovered between them before the noise from outside seemed to seep in sluggishly, as if even that was too tired. It was never truly quiet in the alienage, too many people forced into too little space.

"Either way," Kameron said. "Your case is not as special as you think. Trust me when I say that it makes a difference that you entered willingly into a bond with Justice and that neither of you had any ill intentions at the time. The Fade is a malleable place and so are its inhabitants."

"You were about to tell us about the fly in the ointment," Hawke prompted.

"It's going to take a lot of power. But if Merrill is able to help me with Blood Magic we should be able to get by without any virgin sacrifices," he said dryly. "I've brought some lyrium with me, so as not to overstrain both our lifeforces."

A slow chuckle crawled up Hawke's throat, a sound so caustic it barely registered at first and then made even Kameron's attention fall on him with sudden, sobered vigilance. Hawke merely shook his head. He said, "I _was _asking about the drawbacks. I don't doubt your skill, or Merrill's. Magic isn't my field of expertise, but I'm pretty good at bullshit. _What _is going to happen to Anders?"

Kameron regarded Hawke for a long moment, reassessing him, judging him once again, but there was no obvious indication of whatever conclusion he reached. "Possession is a tricky thing," he said.

Hawke narrowed his eyes. "A Dalish keeper told me that even if a mage can be freed from a demon, that soul would remain damaged and would draw other demons like a wounded animal draws predators."

"Wounds can heal," Kameron said. "It takes time."

He paused, considering, then added, "I'll admit that I don't have a great deal of experience about any of this. No one does. The usual 'cure' for possession tends to be decapitation. Whatever I'm offering, surely that's better?"

"Not if it makes me tranquil," Anders pointed out. He leaned forward, pulled by his own intensity. "I'd rather be dead than tranquil. I'd rather…"

Unexpectedly, he felt himself choking on his own words, fear and guilt wrapping around his throat and squeezing. He felt Isabela's hand on his arm and didn't know if she meant to hold him back or offer some kind of support.

"Pay for your crimes?" Kameron finished. "What would you say if I told that there are no crimes here?"

"I killed innocents!" Anders yelled, voice toppling. Isabela's grip on his arm tightened briefly, but when he didn't seem to be flaring blue she let him go. Anders propelled himself to his feet. The small room brought him up short, because merely standing brought him almost into the centre and he found himself unexpectedly looking down on both Kameron and Hawke.

Smoothly, Kameron first tilted his head back to meet his gaze, than levered himself to his feet smoothly. Standing, he was taller than Anders and his controlled fervour made him tower.

"Let me give you a vision of the future," Kameron said quietly. "In a thousand from now, they will built temples to you and they will praise you as a new prophet. Andraste who freed the slaves and Anders who freed the mages. Do you think such things are not bought with blood? Of warriors and dreamers and cynics, but most of all, blood of innocents."

Anders had known, of course. He had spent long months with Kameron in Amaranthine, but perhaps then he had not seen if for what it was, had taken the man at face-value and judged him by his success rather than his values.

"You are _insane_," Anders said and it came out barely audible. "You are a fanatic."

Kameron tightened one corner of his mouth into the unpleasant imitation of a smile. "Well, yes. That makes two of us, doesn't it?"

Anders hadn't noticed when Hawke had got up, only suddenly he was there, by his side, _between _him and Kameron.

"You are making me be the voice of reason," Hawke noted. "Funny how that works. _This _is getting us nowhere. I couldn't care less for what happens in a thousand years. What happens in the next days, on the other hand, now, that's the catch."

Kameron only shrugged, perhaps realising that it had been too early in the game to reveal this much of himself. The Warden made a show of relaxing his stance, drawing back subtly from them, but Hawke didn't let him go.

"Again, what will this do to Anders?" Hawke asked. "A simple answer, please, I'm a simple man."

"There are no simple answers," Kameron said. "Only lies would be simple."

Hawke had no time to answer, because someone banged on the door so loudly, Anders was momentarily convinced the wood would splinter. Isabela, already about to jump in, bounced to her feet, but then stood as still as everyone else.

Another bang came, this time accompanied by their landlord's voice. "Hey there! Fair warning! The Templars are making a sweep of the alienage!"

Hawke whirled around, rushed to the door and tore it open. "What?"

The landlord shrunk back from him, then scowled. "The Templars are making a sweep," h repeated. "They do that every so often. The alienage _looks _unmanageable, but do you think you are the only shady sorts hiding out around here? Lots of apostates make the same mistake you did."

Hawke blinked, once, than leaned his shoulder into the doorway, saying, "Apostates. You don't say."

The landlord didn't seem impressed. "Not my problem, either way. Templars trash the place and you live, I'll come collect. Or you take your chances and run. Take your pick." He shrugged. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

He threw a short, disinterested look inside, but if the assorted humans inside his apartment surprised him, he didn't show it. He shrugged again and than was off. Hawke took a step outside after him.

Their apartment was on the third floor with at least two more floors stacked up above them. All buildings along the already narrow street had been built like this, usually with old wood and cheap clay. the upper floors were leaning in towards each other above the street, nearly touching in some places. Poles had been wedged against the wall the here and there to keep a wall from toppling over and tearing down a neighbouring house.

A narrow balcony allowed access to the upper floors, thin and threadbare it groaned dangerously under Hawke's weight. Other elves had scrambled to the doors of their houses or where they lingered on their own, dodgy balconies, anxious about the Templars, but resigned to their fate.

Hawke came back inside and closed the door.

"Fuck," Isabela observed, but Hawke cut her short with a sharp gesture.

"No time for weeping," he said and clapped his hands. "Let's get going, children."

Packing took only a few minutes. On the long trek to Val Royeaux they had already shed all unnecessary baggage one by one. All that was left now were a few spare pieces of clothing and enough weapons to arm a small unit warriors. Even most trinkets and keepsakes were gone, left behind Kirkwall or sold or lost as time went on.

While Anders helped Isabela and Merrill get their things, Hawke only pulled on his coat and returned to the door. He pushed it open a little so he could keep an eye on the street. It had filled with elves in the meantime, though the hopes that they might be rebelling was quickly squashed. They weren't resisting, they were simply trying not to get in the way and be crushed underfoot.

A low chink of chainmail announced Kameron. He moved to stand by the other side of the door, shoulders pressed into the wall and arms crossed over his chest.

"Merrill and I should stay," he said.

Some outside firelight caught in Hawke's eyes and made them glitter. "So the Templars won't find a recently abandoned flat and wonder why that might be so."

"Exactly."

Hawke pushed the door a little further and took a step into the doorway, leaned his shoulder against it. "They won't care that you are a Warden, if they even believe you."

"What choice will they have?"

"Templars in the Divine's city? I wouldn't try using mind-control on them. If it fails, they'll just kill you."

Kameron laughed a little. "Let them try."

"I would," Hawke said mildly. "But you are dragging Merrill into it. And while I haven't made up my mind yet whether I'll let you mess with Anders' head, I know we don't have too many options on that front. Meaning, I need you alive."

"I can keep Merrill safe," Kameron said with more gentleness than he had seem capable of. "And it has to be her, she is the only elf."

"Ready when you are," Isabela said as she joined them. She had a neatly tied bundle in hand and a bag over her shoulder, Wuffles was padding along close to her side. Behind her, Anders pulled down the cowl of his own coat, less because it would hide his face and more because it would stop Justice from seeing too much of the intolerable conditions of alienage life.

Hawke caught and held Kameron's gaze for a long moment, then nodded ever so slightly before turning to face his friends.

"Here is the plan," he said with frosty cheerfulness. "Isabela and I will find some rathole for Anders to squeeze out of the alienage. We'll go to ground at Ophélie's house." He fixed his gaze on Merrill. "I'm sorry, you'll need to stay and cover us. The Templars can't find this place empty and become suspicious."

Lately, the serious expression that settled on Merrill's face had become all too familiar. Her mouth was set in a grim line, nodding. "Good idea," she said.

"I'll back you," Kameron added.

"Do you have a plan?" Merrill asked.

Kameron nodded, but made no attempt to explain anything. He shifted out of the way and Hawke gave the door a kick.

Kameron said, "If, for some reason, Ophélie's house is too dangerous, you can go to my room in L'Auberge de la Coraline. Isabela can get you there."

"All set, then," Hawke agreed. He looked down on Wuffles. "You stay here, do what Kameron says until he gets you back to me. Got that?" The dog barked an affirmative, then looked at Kameron expectantly.

Hawke gave Merrill a quick squeeze on her arm, a half-gesture that seemed oddly awkward, caught between expressing his worry and hiding it.

"It'll be fine," Merrill said. "What's one more elf to them?"

Hawke made no answer, but there was no time. They had already dallied too long. Torches were beginning to cast their light around the tight corner up the street.

"Once more into the fray," Hawke said.

* * *

It had been weeks since Anders had been outside for more than a few minutes. Only now, hurrying through the narrow streets with Hawke in front and Isabela behind him, did it occur to him that he had — essentially — been held prisoner in that apartment. Moreover, he had accepted it without even arguing. Was he really that much changed? Being locked up, being caught and held, had always been the things most abhorrent for him. Even while living with Hawke in Kirkwall, he had barely been able to a bear a closed door anywhere in the house.

Yet, he had not thought about how caged he had been, even for a moment. Prisons were nothing to a Spirit, of course and the fear of them equally inscrutable, except when faced with the inherent injustice of chaining another being like an animal. The thought dogged him, more than the Templars they were fleeing from, unable to lay it to rest once he had roused it.

The street seemed to grow darker and narrower the longer they hurried along it. Crates and barrels were piled on the walls on either side, storage the insides of houses had no room for. Debris and grime made the ground under his feet treacherous and he stumbled more than once, though neither Hawke nor Isabela seemed to have the same problems.

They had to squeeze past elves as they went. Some of them were heading away from the Templars, too, notably anxious and suspicious of the humans who had appeared in their middle. Most were simply about their business, trying to get home or find food or, in not so rare cases, keep the tiny patch of space in front of their doors clean. No one seemed to be sleeping in the alienage, but Anders suspected it might be due to simple necessity, life in the alienage had to happen in shifts.

_If you want to call it life, _Anders thought. He had to think of what Kameron had said, about Andraste freeing the slaves and freeing the elves, too, when they joined her in her war against the Imperium. _Look what it gained them, _Anders wanted to say, because it was precisely the opposite of what Kameron had been saying. The elves certainly were not free by any stretch of the imagination, worse even, they seemed to have accepted their fate in much the same way many Circle Mages had bowed to the Chantry and embraced their slavery.

Hawke stopped and Anders almost ran into him, close enough to catch the remnant scent of some expensive Orlesian perfume. Anders tried taking a hasty step back; there were things he tried not to think about. He succeeded in tripping on Isabela, who didn't complain, only caught him with the steely grip of her fingers and manoeuvred him back around.

Hawke pressed his back to the edge of the house and peered around the corner.

"Yes, that's what I thought," he observed when he turned back to them.

Isabela pushed Anders down on a dusty grate and went to join Hawke. She hummed thoughtfully to herself.

"What is it, dammit?" Anders asked.

"If I was a Templar on a raid," Hawke began. "And I had to search the alienage, what would I do?"

"Place ten of my men in front of the gate," Isabela replied. "Because the damn alienage has only one exist."

Anders slumped a little where he sat. Even a moment's thought would have made this obvious and no doubt Hawke had always known they would run into this problem. Anders let his head fall back, felt it as he hit the wall. He saw a slice of sky above them, dark but with stars and moon hidden behind high clouds.

"Hawke," he said. "Why not just hand me over?"

"Right," Hawke almost hissed and Anders sensed rather than heard him move. suddenly Hawke was right in front of him, planting both hands on the wall on either side of his head. Hawke bent down until they were face to face. "Do you want this discussion _now? _Because your sense of timing certainly hasn't improved since Kirkwall."

Anders stared back at Hawke, feeling cool anger rising along his spine and driving away the weariness. "It's not going to end," Anders said. "They will never stop hunting you and that means you can never stop running and never stop killing and… doing everything you do just to protect me."

"No no no," Hawke chided with artificial lightness. "I said _not _now_."_

Hawke was entirely too close and riding on the anger came love and need and hunger; Anders pushed the back of his head into the wall with all his might just to gain a modicum of distance. "I…" Anders whispered. "I think I'm going to kiss you." It sounded like a surrender.

He had expected Hawke to draw back. Something had been broken between them and Anders had precious few illusions, there was nothing left to mend.

But Hawke, being Hawke, merely plastered a wolfish grin on his face. "_Really _not the time," he said and held himself still above Anders for just a moment longer than was comfortable. Then he twisted away, shaking whatever emotions and memories he had so carelessly evoked.

"Where do we stand, Isabela?"

Isabela had had the good sense to scout ahead while Anders and Hawke had themselves distracted. She had rounded the corner and scaled the side of the house to a ramshackle porch roof, where she crouched in the shadows.

"Finished already?" she asked. "My body was all ready to watch the angry sex."

"Yes, and it would have been even better if the Templars joined in," Hawke returned to the corner, leaning his shoulder on the wall and peering down the street to the guarded gate. "And when they are all exhausted we take their clothes and run."

"Sounds like a party with a plan," Isabela chuckled.

"Maybe next time. Armour always chafes." Hawke craned his head around. "Anders? Some magics tricks that'd help us?"

With some difficulty, Anders pulled himself from his seat and stepped forward to stand by Hawke's side. Of course, Hawke was right. This was hardly the moment for this discussion, but at the same time, it had been overdue for so long now, Anders wondered if they would ever have it, if there was ever going to be a _good _time for it. Hawke had done his best to avoid it like the plague since Kirkwall and Anders, for the most part, had been content to let him do it, but the gaping wound was still bleeding. At some point, they would have to deal with it.

"Ten Templars?" Anders thought aloud. "Templars are resistant to magic and I'm not too well-versed in Entropic spells."

"No sweet dreams for the poor guys, then?" Hawke asked.

"Maybe three," Anders offered. "But only for a handful of minutes and if they have no time to defend themselves."

"There will be more on the other side of the gate," Isabela added. She slipped forward and sat with his legs dangling down the side of the roof. "Better to take those down first, at least they won't have any reinforcements coming."

"Good point," Hawke agreed. "Everybody else is locked in with us."

"I can't see those on the other side," Anders said slowly. "I don't know…"

Hawke inspected the surrounding buildings and while most of them were tell, they weren't higher than the wall surrounding the alienage.

"We'll just need to be fast," he finally said and looked at Anders. "I want you to stick to the background, Isabela and I can handle it. We'll kill the Templars and open the gate. With any luck, they won't have figured out what's happening, it gives you a moment to knock them out."

Grimly, Anders nodded.

Isabela stood up, easily balanced despite the uncertain footing. The porch roof ran all along this side of the building, bringing her within striking distance of the group of Templars, offering an edge of surprise.

"As was once so famously remarked on a similarly unsavoury occasion," Hawke said lowly. "Time to dance."

It shouldn't be so easy, Anders decided. Killing shouldn't be a _dance, _it was gruesome and terrible, spreading so much misery everywhere. What bitter bread they had chosen to eat and what a horrible thing to _enjoy. _Forced to keep hiding rather than actively join, Anders had no choice but to helplessly watch as Isabela leaped onto the midst of the Templars. She sank both her daggers into the Templar's shoulders, through the thin seam between helmet and armour, used the slumping man to dull her fall and lever her weapons free before any of the others had time to understand what was going on.

After that, the Templars were fast to react. The sound of scraping steel echoed in the small, open square in front of the gate, too loud in Anders' ears for some reason, as if he _felt _it rather than heard when the death-bringing blades were exposed.

Still crouched over her first victim, Isabela kicked out and caught an approaching Templar in the armoured groin. She didn't hurt him, but he stumbled several steps back as the weight of his armour threatened to overbalance him. She used the moment to twist herself to her feet, sheath one of her daggers and twirl the other in her hand. Slipping after the Templar, past the length of his sword and well inside his guard, Isabela gripped the Templar's arm and yanked it up, ramming her dagger through the flexible leather under the Templar's arm, through his armpit and into his heart.

Hawke was both taller and heavier than Isabela, but he had shown time and again that he could match her for speed and agility. Isabela had drawn the attention of the Templars just long enough to allow him to come at them from the other side. The two Templars who happened to have their back toward him were the first to fall. Hawke delivered a hard kick to the back of the knee, making the Templar stagger and throw her arms out in instinct. In going down, Hawke reached around and pulled her head back, helmet and all to expose her throat and slit it. Hawke let the dying Templar slip from his grip and lever himself to the side, putting his entire weight behind the lung that drove Finesse's gleaming edge through the visor and into the Templar's opened eyes.

Another Templar had thrown himself around to face the new threat and by then, there had been time to realise they were under attack. This one exhibited some caution, turning his head this way and that — compensating for the restricted vision afforded by the helmet — to make sure he still had comrades standing behind him before he swung his longsword in a powerful downward arch.

Anders felt himself twitch in protective instinct. It was hardly the first time he had seen a fight like and although he knew how it ended, he couldn't stop the horrid fantasy playing behind his eyes. He _saw _every time it happened, he saw how that sword would cut through Hawke's shoulder and sever skin and bone and sinew and leaving a wide, bleeding chasm behind. He _saw _the slow-burning realisation on Hawke's face as baffled surprise transformed into a pain so unspeakable it drew the last, laboured breath of Hawke's life into an eternity of torture.

Power cracked between his fingers. The Templars stood so close, those in the back ranks who hadn't sorted themselves out and joined the fight yet. A chain lightning would incapacitate them, would buy Hawke another moment…

… a moment Hawke didn't need. Hawke caught the attacking blade on his daggers, crossed in front of his face and taking the full weight of the Templar easily. An odd tilt of his his Hawke told Anders that Hawke was grinning in that casual, battle-thrilled way of his. Hawke twisted his hands and the Templar's longsword was jarred out of his hands.

For all his moralising, for all the unrealised ideals that ran so rampant inside Anders mind, it was a dance. It could have been a carefully choreographed performance rehearsed for the audience of one, of Anders alone in the murky, dying darkness of the overcrowded alienage of Val Royeaux. Hawke and Isabela played off each other, flew like ghosts through the Templar's ranks as they fed each other opponents and blocked strokes meant for the other's exposed sides or whatever tiny gaps in their defence their fast swirl left open.

It was over within a few short minutes and not a call of warning had been uttered. None of the Templars had had time to shout for help, or bring some more distant comrades to their aid. There was guilt over the destruction — because Anders was to blame for all the death's Hawke or any of the others had inflicted since the Chantry had fallen in the blaze. But Anders could never stop himself from marvelling at the excellence of the display.

One of the Templars had died slumped in front of the narrow door set in the larger gate. Isabela heaved him out of the way as Anders hurried to rejoin them.

"Let's hope there isn't more of them," Hawke observed, wiping his daggers on the skirt of a Templar. He glanced up at Anders. "Ready?"

Clenching his teeth, Anders returned his gaze. "Ready."

The door could only be bolted from the other side, but luckily, no such measure had been taken and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Anders edged to the side, to get a better look outside. He didn't need to see everything, but he had had to have an idea of the layout, something for his mind to work with.

Lucky for once, there were only two Templars posted outside and they hadn't been alerted, leaving them open to the insinuating power of the sleep spell, slumping into heaps where they stood.

"What you know," Hawke remarked, gently slinking past them. "Looks like providence is with us."

"Was about time," Isabela muttered.

"It won't last," Anders added, more to himself. There was no reason for them to deserve anything else, not while they kept their fates tied to him.

* * *

The noise of the alienage had its own beat and rhythm. In the silence left in Hawke's wake, Merrill stood still and only listened to the subtle change in it as the Templars left their mark. In a way, she had expected the elves to protest more and the Templars to be harsher and noisier. It seemed almost like a polite midnight incursion, it wasn't threatening in the way she had come to think of the Templars at all. Perhaps that part of her feelings was getting worn-out, after spending so many years hiding in Kirkwall; anything left of it, surely it would have burned away — or been left behind — on their mad flight across the country?

She didn't like how Kameron Amell was looking her over. There was an edge of disdain in his gaze, something cold and calculating. Men who were so overconfident about their ability to deal with demons, they were the most dangerous of them all. She had paid attention before, she knew Hawke had not decided if he should trust this man and what reasons would be good ones to so. Because they were family? Because they might share an enemy? Because Kameron thought of Anders as a friend? Or, worse, a coming prophet?

Suddenly, Kameron looked away from her and at the mabari. "He called his dog _Wuffles." _

The dog pricked his ears forward attentively at the mention of his name.

"It's from a story," Merrill explained freely. She didn't know what he was thinking at all. She added, "His father used to read it to him when he was a child."

Kameron looked back at her and gave her a faint smile with surprising warmth. It made him resemble Hawke even more. "Don't worry," he said. "Just follow my lead."

"What are you planning?" she asked. She found herself lacing her fingers uncertainly. They had sold their staffs after leaving Kirkwall. They were far too conspicuous and marked them as mages too easily, especially in the hostile climate after Anders' act of defiance. Still, every-time she was heading towards a fight, the absence of the staff left her feeling anxious. She never quite knew where to put her hands.

"Nothing spectacular," Kameron said with a shrug. "Don't draw on your magic unless you absolutely have to. Templars are trained to sense it, but they shouldn't be able to tell if we are both mages or if it's just me."

She frowned. "Do you think there will be a fight?"

"Hopefully not," he said and sounded almost sad about it.

Wuffles gave slight whine and stood up.

"Seems they are getting close," Kameron observed. "Why don't you sit down? Non-threatening and relaxed." He paused for a moment. "I mean both of you."

At least he was lumping her in together with a _mabari_ not just any dog, Merrill thought with uncharacteristic misgiving. He either didn't like her or at least didn't think her particularly capable. He had taken her on out of convenience, because he didn't want to antagonise Hawke, but the warmth he had shown her wasn't even skin-deep.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, knowing it was stiff posture. She lacked Isabela's grace, that uncanny ability to uncoil like a serpent form even the most casual pose. If she settled back on the bed, she would need a few additional seconds to be back in a fight and regardless of what Kameron thought, she could hold her own well enough.

The Warden leaned with his hip on the table, arms crossed over his chest. The coat he hadn't taken off was falling to partially cover the sword, although any trained eye would spot its presence immediately.

Voices could be heard from the apartment next door, some scratching, as if furniture was moved and something thumped on the wall. More voices, followed by a brief moment of silence.

Merrill startled despite herself at the curt knock on their own door when it came, despite knowing it would come, or possibly because of it; waiting for it had wound her too tight. She hesitated for a moment, before she remembered and said, "I…!"

She came no further than that, because the door was pushed open all the way to allow two Templars to crowd into the room. One was tall and bulky, his face mostly hidden by his helmet. The other was a smallish middle-aged man with his helmet under his arm. He began talking even before he had fully entered.

"I apologise for the intrusion, but you are required by the Divine's Law to allow us to search your home for illegal mages." He had faltered somewhat toward the end of his sentence, when he had processed Kameron's presence. He stared at the Warden and drew his thick brows into a suspicious frown.

"_Seigneur_," he said sternly. "I'm sure you are aware that it is forbidden for humans to be in the alienage at night."

Kameron gave him a charming smile, though the way it bared his teeth lessened the effect somewhat. "It's fine. I'm a guest."

The Templar's frown deepened and his companion tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword.

"You misunderstand me," the Templar insisted. "You will have to come with us." He turned his gaze to scrutinise Merrill. "Are you all right?"

This, more than anything, took her by surprise. Concern for elves was rare and coming from a Templar even more so. Merrill was well aware that there were enough humans who would go to the alienage instead of a legitimate brothel, where they would have to abide by the rules of the house instead of doing as they pleased to someone who had no protectors left.

"Thank you for your concern," she said with clumsy formality, buying time while her thoughts raced. She swallowed dry and added, "He is a Grey Warden. He is looking for recruits."

This caused the Templar's brows to draw even further together and the corners of his mouth tightened. He stared intently at Kameron as if this would allow him to ascertain the truth of him. "Humans are not allowed here," he said again. "Warden or no."

Kameron was still for a long moment, than he straightened away from the table and let his arms fall by his side. Leather cracked when the other Templar pulled an inch of his sword free. His commander snapped his hand up and the man sheathed the sword again.

"I meant no harm," Kameron said innocently. "We Wardens have always gone where we pleased. It served us all well in the past." He shrugged nonchalantly, "But for the sake of public order, I'll be on my way."

He caught Wuffles' eye and said, "Come."

Merrill caught the minuscule hesitation, the slight unwillingness of any mabari to follow a stranger's commands, but Wuffles knew his role and walked to Kameron's side obediently. The larger Templar moved a fraction when the large dog was suddenly so much closer.

Neither Templar made any attempt to get out of the way.

"We'll escort you to the gate," the Templar decided. Only then did he step aside and his companion followed suit, opening a narrow way for Kameron to the door.

Merrill spotted at least one more Templar outside, carrying a torch, which she had thankfully not tried taking inside. It was the most common fear in the alienage, if a fire began at any place, it would take the whole quarter down with it and no one would be able to stop it.

Kameron gave a quick nod in Merrill's direction and strode to the door without any hint of discomfort, Wuffles followed dutifully behind.

The Templar, too, tipped his head towards Merrill before he left. Either he considered her harmless or he had been so distracted by a Grey Warden he had dismissed her from his attention entirely.

She waited only a few moments after they had left to scramble to her feet and return to the door. She cracked it open a little and peered outside. There had been five Templars in total, two with torches and another one with bow over his shoulder who joined the others in the street below.

Merrill could see other groups of five, marked by the light of their torches, as they went from house to house. She had hoped she could follow Hawke immediately after the Templars were gone, but by the way this looked, she would be better served in keeping her head down until the air had cleared.

The Templars marched him to the gate in silence. They had surrounded him as well as the narrow streets allowed, but so far their behaviour was cautiously polite. But that changed the moment they entered the square in front of the gate to find the ten lifeless bodies of Templars strewn on the dirty cobblestones.

The leading Templar stopped on his tracks and turned around.

"Restrain him!"

Kameron made no attempt to stop the Templars who came at him from both sides to grip his arms. A third went to retrieve his sword.

"I had nothing to do with this," Kameron pointed out calmly.

"On the other hand," the Templar said. "There are too many coincidences for my liking."

What Kameron did not know was that behind him, the fifth Templar had closed his eyes and began to concentrate. It was pure instinct, faced with so many slain comrades and having learned that enemies of this magnitude were always mages. Templar _magic, _Kameron liked to think, because it never felt quite as different to normal magic as the Chantry would have liked.

The cleansing power of the Templar spell flooded the square and it staggered Kameron, made his knees buckle and forced him to lean into one of the Templars for a split second. He had been careful not to advertise his own power, but because of this, it was further from his grasp than normal.

"And a mage, too!" the Templar noted, sounding rather less surprised. He looked past Kameron. "Bind him."

Kameron pulled himself straight and shook his head to free himself from the dulling remnant of the Templar's spell. "I'm far beyond your jurisdiction," he said with a low, impatient snarl coming into his voice. A little behind him, Wuffles bared his teeth threateningly.

The Templar took a step forward while his man jerked Kameron's arms back and bound him with practiced efficiency.

"You probably are," the Templar agreed. "But I can't let you walk. Tell your dog to be good or we put him down."

Kameron closed his eyes for a moment, letting the power flood back. The Templar binding him pulled on his hands and he felt the Tevinter claw ring come loose.

Kameron opened his eyes again and turned his head so he could see as the Templar lifted the ring up above his shoulder for his commander to see.

"That's…" the Templar began.

"Be grateful," Kameron whispered. "From here on until the day you die; very, _very _grateful that I am willing to be _nice_ tonight."

* * *

**References/Translations:**

"the night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand" — Frederick L. Knowles

"seigneur" — (french) sort of somewhat like 'mister', also in the sense of 'my lord'. Used here as the Orlesian variant of DA's 'serah' since this term seems to belong solely to the Free Marches.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This chapter. Just. I can't. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but this chapter just didn't want to cooperate and I'm afraid it shows. To make matters worse, I forgot to keep notes of my references, so some might have gone unacknowledged. On the upside, I missed my deadline only by a few days...

**A few words on the Wardens and Blood Magic:** There is quite the discrepancy between DAO and DA2 on the matter of blood magic. It might be because we only get to meet very few Wardens in DAO and their stances might not be representative of the order as a whole, or there might be some slight retconning going on to make the escalatation of the mage/templar thing more believable. For a variety of reasons, I very much prefer DAO's somewhat more relaxed treatment of the issue and especially Kameron's opinion on the whole mess is going to reflect that.


	4. The Teeth of the Lion

**Chapter 4: The Teeth of the Lion**

* * *

The streets of Val Royeaux were beginning to fill with people as they made their way to Ophélie's townhouse. Carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables made their way to the squares and halls, so the stalls would be ready when the markets opened. Servants and workers left their homes on the way to their workplaces or send on errants by their employers. The wanderers of the night had withdrawn into their coats and cowls, hurrying away into the shadows like demons fleeing back into the Fade.

As they passed, Anders caught snippets of conversation. Rumour about some terrible event in the alienage had already overtaken them and although the accounts seemed to be far off the mark, he thought he felt the uncertain tension in the gossip nevertheless. Orlais was still mostly peaceful and the threat of war only a distant shadow, but people knew it couldn't last. How many of them would be caught in the crossfire? Anders wondered. If the war came, crazed mages or fanatic Templars, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Not to the washerwoman with her neat bundles of linen and not to the yelling coachmen or the street musicians making their way home after a long night of earning their keep. So many innocents put in harm's way and only for the promise that at the end of it, a better world would come.

Anders found himself clenching his hands by his side in aimless agitation. What if he was wrong? How could anything good come of it at all?

"You've _got _to be kidding me."

Anders snapped out of it and shook his head back, pushing his hood far enough down to get a proper look at what was right in front of him. He had seen Ophélie's townhouse only once and briefly, but it was an easy guess to make.

Isabela had come to stand close to him; he couldn't tell if it was because of some protective instinct or because her sense of personal space was somewhat different than that of normal people.

"Tell me about it," Hawke agreed with an engaging smile and took a step forward.

The doorman frowned, eyed Anders and Isabela skeptically past Hawke. "Who are they?"

"Friends," Hawke said and while the smile was still in his voice it was slowly becoming wooden and fake. "Don't worry, they won't cause you any trouble and even if they did, it'd be on my head."

The doorman didn't seem convinced. He chewed on his lower lip for a long minute and it appeared as if he was about to deny them. "Can't well send you away, Seigneur," the doorman concluded. "But go talk to Gervaise, she should be in the kitchen at this hour."

Hawke nodded and waited patiently while the doorman unlocked the cast iron gate and opened the way for them. Isabela and Anders filed past without waiting for an additional invitation, glad to be finally away from the street where every passing guardsman was a potential enemy.

"Thank you," Hawke said and gave the doorman a pat on the shoulder. "You won't regret it."

The doorman muttered something Anders was too far away to understand, but somehow the doorman rather seemed to doubt that.

"What's got to him, anyway?" Isabela asked on the way to the house.

"Fenris barged in last night," Hawke shrugged. "Caused something of a stir."

They walked several more steps before Isabela suddenly gripped Hawke's shoulder and pulled him around. "Wait," she said. "What _is _with Fenris?"

"He left," Anders said before Hawke had a chance to.

Isabela glanced at him, but kept her gaze fixed on Hawke. "He wouldn't," she announced. "Would he?"

Hawke faced her calmly. Rings were beginning to show under his bright eyes, proof that he hadn't had any sleep that night. "He's free," he said. "That's what…" he stopped, suddenly lost for words. "That's what I could give him. If he wants to walk away from mages and their problems, it's his choice."

Isabela frowned. "And that's what you told him?"

"What else would I have said?"

Isabela rolled her eyes. "You are a foolish little puppy," she said. "Fenris wants you to tell him to stick it out with us. He'll _hate _being on his own."

Hawke frowned. Anders could tell that Hawke had no answer, because he knew him too well, because he had spent so many years admiring him, from afar and across the table and their own bed. It was a rare sight, Hawke was so rarely lost for an answer and even if he was, he had enough words for a deflection.

"Seigneur Ballagh!" a woman yelled. She had thrown the door open and was hurrying down the garden path. She was a middle-aged woman, small and round. Strands of dark, if greying, hair escaped her white cap. Flour covered her hands and she wiped them on her apron as she walked.

Hawke twisted free of Isabela's grip and faced her. "Gervaise!" he imitated her manner of speaking. "I have _terrible_ manners," he pointed out apologetically, but gave her a quick hug.

"You," she began. "After you left last night, I was petrified you and the Madame had a fight and you wouldn't come back!"

"Never fear, I'm a bad penny, always turning up again," Hawke chuckled. "Can we go inside?"

Gervaise ushered them through the door and down a narrow hallway.

Servants were already busy in the kitchen and the air was filled with the scents of fresh bread and ground coffee.

"Do you have a bedroom for my friends?" Hawke asked. "We've had a rough night."

"Of course, Seigneur Ballagh."

Gervaise turned to the nearest servant — a young girl, carrying an empty basket — and gave her a few sharp orders with nothing of the friendliness she had reserved for Hawke. The girl put the basket away and ran off to prepare a room.

"I don't think we should disturb Madame with this," Hawke said. "She's had enough adventure tonight, I think."

Gervaise nodded seriously, looking at Hawke, "You are such a nice young lad, but you do have some strange friends. An elf, no less," she shook her head sadly. "I worry about you sometimes."

It took only a few minutes to prepare a guest-room down the hallway from the kitchen. Never in a thousand years would Gervaise have given this room to _noble _guests, but while she genuinely doted on Hawke, she had little illusions about the company he kept.

The other servants kept their distance from Hawke and his companions and the kitchen was large enough to give them enough space to do their duties.

Anders found himself a low bench at the side of the oven and leaned into the warm stone, drawing in the scent of the kitchen. He heard clattering as Isabela shoved some bottles around on a shelf, she pulled herself to her tiptoes and reached for something at the back the shelf.

"Gotcha!" she announced and pulled a heavy bottle of black glass to the fore. "I knew I'd spotted this trophy when I came in."

"I thought you drink every swill," Hawke remarked softly.

"Bah," Isabela shrugged. "Just because I'll do anything doesn't mean I don't recognise quality. And this little beauty is coming with me. Don't wake me before noon."

"What about Fenris?" Hawke asked and she barely slowed in her way out of the kitchen. She waved her hand. "Don't worry, I'll fix it."

Anders pulled his gaze away from the doorway through which she had left and focused on Hawke and caught him unawares.

Hawke had planted both hands on the large table in the centre of the room and he leaned heavily on the wood, staring down somewhere in an indeterminable spot in front of him. The dark circles under his eyes were drawn in unhealthy contrast to the way he seemed to have paled under his tanned skin. He must have felt Anders' scrutiny and glanced up at him, past the strands of disheveled hair, looking both dangerously feral and hopelessly cornered.

The moment didn't last. Hawke shook free of the table and plastered some new mask on his face.

"Now, how to get back into Ophélie's good graces…?" he asked airily. "Perhaps breakfast in bed? Gervaise made a batch of her peach and ginger jam only a few days ago and it's honestly _to die for." _

"Are you sleeping with her?" Anders asked, his tongue once more overtaking his mind.

"Gervaise?" Hawke sniggered. "I don't think she does _that_ with anyone."

Anders pulled his brows together. He should take the chance — take the _joke _— and pull out of this discussion. Whatever would happen at the end of it, he wouldn't like it, none of them would.

But he missed his catchword and his timing was all off. The moment was gone.

Lightly, Hawke said, "Of course I am. We have to keep up appearances, after all. And as long as all of Val Royeaux is talking about Madame Ophélie's affair with her dashing bodyguard, they are much less likely to wonder why said bodyguard shares a startling similarity with the disgraced — although equally dashing — Champion of Kirkwall."

"I thought," Anders began slowly, his voice becoming strained. "I thought we had _something."_

Hawke dipped down in front of a cabinet and pulled free a tray of polished silver. "I don't know. Did we?"

"I loved you," Anders insisted, baring his teeth. "I _still_ love you."

As if Anders had never spoken at all, Hawke continued. "Because from where I'm standing what we _had _can barely be called a relationship. You used me, that's all there is to it."

If he had taken his fist to Anders' face, it could hardly have hurt more. Anders sat glued to his spot, watching as Hawke quickly and efficiently assembled plates and cutlery on the tray.

"I never used you," Anders said, affronted by the mere suggestion.

"Is that so?" Hawke stopped in what he was doing, fixed Anders again with those suddenly haunted eyes of his. "Seems to me, everytime you needed something, _I _was there. You needed someone to help rescue Karl and there I was, happy to trade. You needed someone to take down Ser Alric and there I was, charging in. You needed some safe place to stay and what would have been better than my Hightown mansion? Surely I will _happily _fund your free clinic, why wouldn't I? Someone _had _to go crawling around rank sewers and caves for your ingredients and there I was, yet again, _jumping as you called."_

Anders felt small, helpless, utterly at a loss for words and Hawke didn't relent, didn't release him from his gaze. "Do you want me to go on?"

"No," Anders said, though he wasn't sure it was loud enough to be heard. "That's not what I wanted," he added and couldn't help how utterly inadequate it sounded.

"You did it anyway."

Some life seeped back into the emptiness Hawke had torn in his heart and mind. It was tragic, what he had done to Hawke, whether it had been intentional or not, but never for any narcissistic gain.

"We are living in desperate times," Anders said. "I had to take drastic steps. How else would change ever come?"

"And that's not the worst part, isn't it?" Hawke asked back. His voice was beginning to crack slightly as he continued. "At the end there, you needed an executioner. Someone to bring _you _to justice. And there I was once more, holding the blade. Tell me, did you really think I would do that?"

Anders' throat had all but closed. He didn't think he could have answered if he had wanted to, if there had been words for him to use. Something, _anything, _to set things right again. Everything he had done, it had been meant to bring justice _into _the world, not take it away. In all the weeks leading up to the Chantry explosion, Hawke had been breaking his heart simply by being there, by staying at his side. No matter what Hawke thought — and be justified in thinking — his feelings had always been real. In a way, Anders thought, maybe that made everything worse.

"Seigneur Ballagh," the doorman loomed in the door. "There is a knife-ear outside who says she knows you." He scratched his head. "Got your dog with her."

"The correct term, I believe, would be 'elf'," Hawke pointed out with acid mirth. "Just in case you need to refer to one of them again. And yes, she's a friend. Direct her to the kitchen, if you please. Thank you."

As the doormen left, Hawke looked back at Anders. "Let it go, Anders," he said, surprisingly gently. "Water under the bridge. I'm little better. I'll put you through any blood magic ritual just to keep you alive. I'd draw the line at horrific kitten sacrifices, but short of that, I'm going to force you to _live _because I couldn't stand losing you, too."

* * *

There was silence in the cells of the White Spire, a silence so brittle it shivered uncertainly under the soft soles of Leliana's boots. She was not easily intimidated and while the two Templars accompanying her were large men and heavily armoured, she had used the time to map their weaknesses and strengths. It was pure habit. She could think of scenarios that would force her to fight them, but none of them was particularly likely to occur, even with Kameron there.

She had heard of it purely by chance. She had wanted to follow the Divine's suggestion and catch some sleep, but it had kept eluding her until she had decided to journey to the kitchens and brew herself a cup of tea. The act alone, she had reasoned, would serve to soothe her and convince her subconscious mind that it was time for rest. She had met a couple of Templars who had just ended their shift and they had been all too eager to share their outrage with anyone who happened to be around.

A slaughter had taken place in the alienage, they said. Ten of them had been killed and although the deaths were not by magic, a Grey Warden mage had been arrested in the alienage and brought to the White Spire. The Templars knew no details of what had happened, they had not been to the alienage themselves, only heard it from comrades. Apparently the rumour of blood magic was also already making the rounds.

So, abandoning the idea of tea and sleep, Leliana had dressed quickly and got herself to the White Spire as fast as possible. The Templars there were alert, but deferred to her authority, if with some reluctance.

The silence was strange, almost as if there were no other mages detained in any of the other cells. Leliana was about to ask, but the Templars stopped and one went to unlock the cell. Again, the lack of magic wards surprised her, but it became quickly obvious why such would be unnecessary.

Kameron Amell had been shackled to the wall and his body had an oddly limp tilt to it, half hanging off the chains and half slumped into the wall behind him. He put his head back as Leliana stepped through the door and looked her over from slack-lidded eyes, he frowned in an attempt to focus on her. His mouth was set in a lazy sneer.

Leliana looked over her shoulder at the nearest Templar. "Can you leave us for a moment?"

The Templar waited just long enough to make her consider repeating her request, only then did he nod and draw back, his comrade following him.

"I don't _have_ to be involved?" she said in ironic echo.

Kameron chuckled. "Well," he said in a slow, thick-tongued drawl. "You don't _have _to be. Turn around, walk out, be my guest. Won't _change _a thing."

"Did they drug you?"

Kameron pulled his head to the side, let it rest on his shoulder. "Yes, some variety of magebane I don't recognise. Tastes like bramble, actually."

Leliana sighed. "You know as well as I do that I can't just leave you like that."

Kameron chuckled again. "So there is the joke," he observed. "I can't concentrate properly. Hard to focus, couldn't get a spell right if my life depended on it. Which it might, come to think of it."

"I don't think that's funny."

"Yah," the sneered suddenly hardened. "The joke is, blood has _nothing _to do with the mind. It's just… there. Passion. Heat. I don't need to think at all. I'd just have to bite my tongue. That's the joke. All these campy little Templars, so very scared of me and all they can think of to do is give me a poison that can't protect them."

Leliana hesitated, debating with herself for a long moment and trying gauge how far out of earshot the Templars had gone. "They don't know that. You are a Warden mage and free of the Circle, if they think you are a maleficar, they _will _kill you."

"And the joke would be on them," Kameron asserted.

"What happened?" Leliana asked. "You didn't take long to go from overconfident to chained."

"Bad luck, that's all," Kameron gave a toothy grin. "Happens to the best of us."

This caused her to frown, thinking hard on all the possible repercussions this might have. Kameron was a man who valued his control, it allowed him to play his dangerous games, at the same time, it meant he was always on a tightrope and threatened by a fall. Even a small mistake would topple him, reveal him to the world as what he was; and not just the carefully fostered rumours he liked to spread.

"They send for the Wardens," Leliana said. "So someone can confirm your identity, but it could be as long as two weeks until they get back."

He nodded slowly. "I hope they don't keep me chained to the wall this long, at some point I'll have to relieve myself and I'd rather keep it clean. Probably more fun for everyone involved."

"I could try to get you a better cell," Leliana offered, though she wasn't sure how she would accomplish that, short of going to the Divine herself. The Templars hated any interference when they dealt with mages and would fight her every step of the way. And asking Justinia was… not an option she liked to contemplate. His words still wouldn't leave her, the choice she might have to make between them. She wanted to keep these two lives of hers as separate as possible, even if that seemed become increasingly unlikely.

"Or leave the door unlocked as you leave," he offered. "That'd work, too."

"If you were thinking straight, you'd know how stupid that sounds," Leliana countered with a grimace. Kameron's drugged smugness was beginning to wear away her patience. Why should she try to safe him if he couldn't be bothered to do his part?

"Figuratively," he added as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I know those Templars are watching you like hawks." He paused. "Speaking of which, I still need to help my cousin and his better half. Or worse half. Or is it actually a quarter?"

"From what I understand, Hawke can take care of himself."

Even as she spoke, a thought occurred to her and it left a bad taste on the back of her tongue. "Did he…" she began. "Did he kill the Templars in the alienage?"

"I'd guess," Kameron nodded amiably. "Or maybe it was a mass suicide. You never know with these Templars."

There must be enough sense left in him to recognise her shocked expression. He waved with one his hands, making the chains rattle. "Oh come on, we've all got our body counts."

Looking for support, Leliana pressed her shoulder into the wall. "I suppose that is true," she said.

"Good, at least you still have _some _sense," he stated with some finality in the startling echo of her own thoughts.

She shook her head and decided to press through on reason alone. "If you can sit still for…"

_"I don't care who she is! I won't have any idiots meddling with blood mages!"_

The voices beat down the hallway ahead of the rattling of Templar armour and heavy footsteps. Leliana stepped back outside, glad to have Kameron and his unpredictable state of mind momentarily out of sight, if not out of hearing.

The man who marched toward her wore the sigils of a Knight-Captain of the Templars; no longer young, he carried himself with a confident, energetic step. Bushy brows were drawn together above sharp eyes and a thin mouth set in perfect displeasure. He gave the two Templars a withering look, but fixed on Leliana immediately.

"How do I know you are not a blood thrall?" he demanded.

Leliana pulled herself to her full height. Men like this, they would not budge to anything but strength. They had no respect for diplomacy or good manners and she knew she didn't look like anything that would impress him.

"Sister Nightingale," she said with just a hint of acid. It brought him up short, if only for a brief moment.

"And if you were the Divine herself!" he bellowed, louder than necessary, needing to convince himself and his men. "No one goes anywhere near any suspected blood mages! Not on my watch!"

Leliana held her ground and watched him with studied arrogance, kept her posture and silence for so long it began to unsettle him, evidenced by the beads of sweat glittering on his forehead. "Why are you here anyway?" he finally asked with forced courtesy.

Leliana kept looking at him for longer than was comfortable. And well he should, such open disrespect towards the Divine was no fitting behaviour for a Templar, no matter the circumstances. Eventually she glanced back towards the cell, drawing his attention with her.

"Surely you know who this is?" she asked.

"A mage," the Knight-Captain answered immediately. "Arrested while hiding in the alienage."

"A Grey Warden mage," she corrected tartly. "And not just any Warden, either."

The Knight-Captain's frown deepened. "No Wardens in the city at the moment. It'll be weeks before we hear from them."

"You don't need them, I know him," Leliana said. "I was his companion during the Fifth Blight. He _is _a Warden. Let him go."

It took him some time to process this revelation, she saw it slowly ticking away behind his eyes. He was obviously not a man used to encountering a world that didn't conform to his expectation and being told otherwise wasn't something he would accept easily.

One of the other Templar's suddenly slumped into the wall with a loud clatter of steel on stone. The Knight-Captain blocked Leliana's view, she saw nothing of what might have caused it and even if she had, there was nothing she could have done to stop what followed. Time stretched, a short minute turning into a long series of eternities so Leliana could be condemned forever as a helpless audience. Past the Knight-Captain's shoulder she saw the second Templar briefly twitch, then take one quick step forward, put his hand on the Knight-Captain's head and pull it back.

Leliana was about to leap in, but wasn't fast enough and the Templar drew his knife across the Knight-Captain's throat. It was a deep cut and made with a sharp knife, severing arteries easily and causing blood to gush forward with strength.

A look of puzzled stupefaction froze on the Knight-Captain's face. He raised his hands halfway to his throat, but never quite got to finish the move. The Templar let him go and the Knight-Captain collapsed, making tiny, gargling sounds and his body continued to shake, spreading his blood around the floor.

Leliana saw the look of utter horror on the Templar's face, blood running from his nose and the corner of his mouth. His hand trembled and his movement jerked clumsily, but it was enough to walked to his other comrade and slid his throat, too. She didn't wait to stay and watch as he took the knife to himself.

Leliana returned to the cell, fast steps without hesitation, but with cold dread climbing her spine of what she would find. The Templars had forbidden to bring a weapon, but she still had a dagger stashed in her boot and a small knife hidden away behind her belt. She pulled both of them free as she went.

A thin rivulet of blood had run down the side of Kameron's face and dripped from his chin to his shirt. His head had fallen to the side and his eyes were glazed, unfocused. He hung heavily in the chains.

"Maker," Leliana muttered under her breath. "You fool. I had it."

There was no reaction, only laboured breathing and the drip of blood.

"Kameron?" Leliana asked, taking another step. She wasn't entirely sure if the chains would be able to hold him if he had truly been possessed. She called his name again and this time his eyelids flickered, his mouth tightened.

He groaned, blinked. He tried to looked at her but his head seemed too heavy, falling to rest between the wall and his arm. Gradually, he seemed to be finding back to himself, the limpness bleeding from his body. Eventually he trained dilated eyes on Leliana and said, "Wow."

"No," Leliana stated. She sheathed one of the daggers and relaxed her stance somewhat. "No, it wasn't. It never…" And even the poet in her was lost for words.

"I…" Kameron began and a smile exposed bloodied teeth, making his expression leery and ugly, but it was _Kameron _looking back at her, not some demon from behind his eyes, the pride and desire were all his alone. "You have no idea how this feels," Kameron sighed.

Warring instincts kept her frozen in her place. Part of her wanted to kill him, then, slit his throat as he had forced on the Templars. No mortal being should be able to that to another, no one man should wield such power. And she _knew _what he was capable of, she had seen it often enough, as loathsome as it was useful.

He must have seen her thoughts, or perhaps he was reading them from her mind rather than her face.

With preternatural calm, he said, "I think you have a choice to make now."

For some reason, it occurred to her that the sounds of the dying Templars had stopped. There was no sound coming from the hallway any longer, only oppressive silence. In a way, she had known it would come to this. Not the dead Templars or the blood magic, but she had always known that at some point she would called on to make a stand, to decide once and for all, who she was to be in this life. She had thought that this moment had come and gone with Marjolaine's death, but it had stopped being true in the face of this.

She was aware of the Templar's blood soiling the front of her own shirt and the weight of her dagger in her hand and behind her, stretching back all those years since her youth, a long line of dead bodies.

"I had it!" she snapped. "This wasn't necessary!"

Kameron gave her a slow look. His face had gone oddly pale, deathly white, fine veins visible just underneath his skin. "It came," he said, as if that explained anything. He gave a shake of his head, but it only made his gaze less focused. He added, "Kill me, leave me, or free me."

Time was ticking away while she stood there, unable to move, each choice as terrible as the other. For an instant, she wanted nothing more than to walk away from it all, from him and her life, even from the Divine and the work she had her do. Run away and hide and pray that the world would be a different place when she returned.

Instead, she sheathed her second dagger and returned to the dead Templars. A string of curses trailed from her lips when as she searched the Templars for a key to Kameron's shackles. It helped so she didn't have to hear herself think beyond the immediate concerns.

There were no keys, but she still had her emergency lockpick. All she had to do was hope it would be enough.

Fiddling with the shackles brought her closer to Kameron than she had been before, closer than she had been in years. She had been attracted to him, once, but she had put it down to hero worship, the confidence and charisma he needed to end a Blight. She had never acted on it and she didn't know if he was aware of it at all; he had been closer to Morrigan and _much _closer to Zevran almost from the start.

She forced her teeth into her lip as she worked, listening — _sensing — _the metal in her hand and minuscule movements in the lock. Her mind was jumbled enough as it was, even without remembering such feelings and wondering how they played into what she was doing.

He had turned his head to watch her and she felt his gaze resting on her face, making her feel exposed. There was no telling how clearly he was still able to think or how well he would be able to reason. It made her blood crawl, making her flesh itch just underneath the skin.

A tiny click echoed in the cell and the lock sprung open. Limply, Kameron extracted his arm and Leliana went to unlock the other shackle.

"You didn't need to do this," she said as the second lock was opened, but it jammed and Leliana tucked the lockpick away to grip the shackle with both hands and force it open wide enough for Kameron's hand to slip through.

"He was letting you go," she said again, just to make a point. She stepped back.

Kameron looked at her as if he had trouble comprehending what she was saying.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. "Come on, we still have a way to go."

Kameron began to follow, but he staggered after a few steps and caught himself only with some difficulty.

"… Maker's malice," he muttered. "Last time I was this shaky was the morning after my wedding."

Leliana stood outside in the hallway, looking down on the dead Templars and made no move to help him as he came up behind her, pressing his hand into the doorway to steady himself. He stood swaying slightly and Leliana looked him over for a moment.

"Neither of us is going to just walk out of here," she said. "Not the way we look."

Kameron put his head to the wall and leaned in heavily. "Disguise?"

"Not from them," Leliana said, indicating the three dead Templars laying in a large, messy puddle of blood. Even if they could wipe the armour pieces clean, the cloth and leather was all soaked. She gave Kameron a long look. "If we have to fight…?"

The bloody-toothed smile was back. "It'll come," he assured her, although the statement did nothing to comfort her. He must have caught onto her hesitation and made a valiant attempt to straighten away from the wall and school his features. "The only way out is through," he added in the face of her doubt.

"I know," she said. "I'll go ahead. Try to keep up."

* * *

It was a long trek through the winding hallways of the prison. Leliana, who had only a vague sense of the layout, led them by instinct and cunning past guardposts and into a storeroom. The armour pieces did not fit and were too mismatched to help in a disguise, but the clothes they found at least were free of blood. There were weapons, too. Still unsteady on his feet, Kameron claimed the longsword for himself as well as the back scabbard that went with it.

"You didn't carry Vigilance," Leliana noted.

"People recognise the sword better than the man," he replied. He had one arm folded over he top of a chest, resting his head against the edge and massage his forehead with the other. The bleary-eyed look had began to fade. Unfortunately his balance and strength didn't return in the same way. Despite his reassurance she wasn't keen on getting into a fight, for many reasons. He would kill and gruesomely so and she wasn't sure if that was worse or better than being captured again.

"Did you kill the Templars because I was telling them who you are?" she asked, even though she didn't really want to know. It was done, nothing would change that.

"You did? No, I didn't hear it," He pressed he palm of his hand into his temple and hissed in pain. "Damn," he murmured.

Leliana stuffed their bloodied clothes into a crate and pushed it into a dark, dusty corner, where it would be out of easy sight. Straightening away, she looked Kameron over again.

"Ready?"

"No," he groaned. "But that's not the point, is it?"

Time was working against them. Every minute they wasted the chances increased that the corpses were found by the cells and what had caused their deaths would blatantly obvious to anyone, Templar or not. A blood mage loose in the heart of the White Spire, no one would be able to stop the flood then, not even the Divine, provided she wanted to at all and why would she?

Trusting to what she knew of the place, Leliana found a narrow stairway at the end of an equally narrow hallway. It had an unused, abandoned look to it. So much so, in fact, her first thought was that the wood would break under their combined weight. It did nothing of the sort, but it groaned and shivered under every step in an oddly mesmerising rhythm. It took effort to pace herself, so she did not stumble and fall into the abyss created by the spiralling stairs.

They passed locked doors on every floor, some of them even nailed shut, others merely covered in spiderwebs.

"I didn't think these things had back-exits," Kameron observed. His breathing was laboured and every step seemed to cost him.

Leliana glanced back and pushed the one thought as far from her mind as she could: what if he fails? What if he becomes an abomination? She had never seen him this weak before. Wounded, yes, of course and exhausted after fights, but never like this, never this worn empty look. If he became paler than he was, he would be translucent.

"They all do," Leliana said. "Large and ancient buildings, they are not static. Rooms are abandoned and others are opened up, depending on what people need at the time. I know what to look for to find these secret places."

She stopped and turned to face him. "You are not making it."

He stood swaying a little. "I'm not making it by _talking_ about not making it," he corrected.

"Kameron," she began. "If we go to the Divine, if we explain it all, she'll see reason. No one else has to die."

"You said it yourself. Warden mage is all fine and good, but a maleficar? Do you really think you can protect me?"

She didn't think the emotion crossing her face was visible to him, the split second of doubt amidst all her faith, but Kameron was fast, had always been too perceptive even for her. "Provided you even want to," he added.

"I _am _helping you," she pointed out with the quick flare of anger. "Aren't I? And you look like death."

"I'm not dying here."

"You think you are not dying _anywhere_."

"That too, yes."

* * *

It was a nightmare journey, far worse than any open battle could have been. Leliana had to feel along in the dark, find a path by instinct and guesses, bringing them their the heart of the Templar order, alerted at some point, when the corpses were found and the White Spire was locked down. No secret passage would lead them out, no back-exit, no other path.

Kameron was both weak and devastating and it meant he was an unknown factor. Every step she thought he might turn into an abomination, his mind too weak, his soul to desperate, rend apart by the fatal interplay of magebane and blood magic. Of course he was right, however, the Divine would never back him now. Even if she wanted to, political and social pressure would force her to take a stance and blood magic was far beyond acceptable.

Yet, here she was, Leliana herself, left hand of the Divine, scurrying through the White Spire to safe him, just this one, singular blood mage. She didn't know if that was the right thing, if he deserved to be an exception at all.

And then they ran afoul of a group of guards. They were patrolling the quarters of the Tranquil on the ground floor, close enough to freedom that Leliana thought she could already taste it. But among the Tranquil, no disguise was going to hold. They were evidently no Templars and neither of them would pass for Tranquil, even if they could have faked the mark.

Leliana had a moment to sheer horror, imagining what Kameron's foul magic would do to them now, but he did no such thing. He drew the longsword instead and though she saw the effort it took, his skill was just as obvious. Some ancient elven magic bestowed on him and honed under Zevran's tutelage.

She had no time to appreciate the gesture he was making, instead she ducked past the Templars as quickly as she could and cut off their retreat in the hallway. The other rooms were dormitories, at least that's what a quick look had revealed. The Tranquil would not interfere unless prompted and even then, they were easy to outmanoeuvre.

She almost collided with one of the Templars who had attempted a quick retreat to alert the others while his comrades spread out, the harsh snap of holy smites going down around both Kameron and Leliana. While she felt the tingle, Kameron buckled under the impact, but managed to catch himself on one knee. He used his downed position to draw the longsword and lunge upward with it. He brought his other hand up with him, caught a Templar's wrist and turned a downward stroke aside. He used the Templar to lever himself back to his feet, well inside the man's defence with just enough room for him to plunge the sword into the Templar's side.

Leliana dodged and came up behind the Templar, pushing him into her wall with a hard bump of her shoulder. She winced as she collided with the metal of the man's armour, but while heavy armour had advantages, they were neither speed nor agility them. It protected, but once your enemy tripped you, you were little better than a bug on it's back. Leliana swiped the Templar's feet away from under him, made sure his head hit the wall as he went down. She would have fallen with a killing stroke of her dagger, but saw the two remaining Templars closing in on Kameron.

She spun around and threw the smaller of her weapons in a straight line. It hit its mark perfectly, the narrow seam between helmet and collar where only a layer of chainmail protected him. The knife cut clean through and the man stumbled sideways.

Kameron seemed half-caught under the weight of the first man he'd killed, clearly attempting to shove his dead-weight into his attacker but not quite managing it. Leliana rushed forward, hacked her dagger down into the Templar's neck and pulled him back, turned him around on the hook and hurled him away with as much force as she could muster.

Kameron ceased his struggle against the dead Templar and instead allowed himself to sit down, the corpse hanging on him. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face and he passively watched as Leliana hauled the Templar off him.

Before she had the chance to say anything, something shattered behind and because she was still looking at Kameron, she saw the red glow flood his eyes, bright and dark at the same time and a nauseating wet splatter followed from behind her.

Kameron closed his eyes, but that only made it worse, because the glow penetrated his eyelids.

Slowly, Leliana turned. The first Templar, the one who had been trying to run, lay in the doorway. His face was covered in blood, scraps of skin hanging lose where the veins had torn. As she watched, blood was beginning to leak from the seams of his armour.

Kameron pulled himself to his feet and stood by her side, following her gaze, but she didn't have to look at him to know that his expression would be wildly different from her's, perhaps content or even serene, sickly satisfied by what he had done

She pushed the image from her mind, tried not to think of the tiny shudders that still wreaked the Templar as they passed him by. Later, she decided. She would order her thoughts _later. _And pray for forgiveness and weep for the innocence she kept losing.

* * *

**References:**

"Thady Boy Ballagh" — a character in Dorothy Dunnet's _Queen's Play_

"If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think that the lion is smiling at you." — Al-Mutanabbi (10th Century poet)

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thedas is refreshingly free of homophobia. I don't know if there is such a thing as marriage for homosexual couples and even then, Kameron would never want the Chantry's blessing on anything he does. It's more of a symbolic thing.

Two things I've noticed writing this chapter:

#1 I'm having far too much fun coming up with horrible ways to kill with blood magic. Bio already took my Arcane Warrior from me, I hope they leave me the blood mage.

#2 I'm also having too much fun writing Hawke. I mean, Kameron I can do in my sleep, he's my type of character, but Hawke's laidback-but-suffering attitude is new and interesting.

**Additional Note:** The Citadel DLC has brought me back to ME and I'm finishing my Insanity playthrough. I'm having a bit of a problem to find my way back to DA. It'll pass, but there is no way I'll finish this story in the time I wanted to.

* * *

**I hope you keep reading! Have fun!**


	5. L'Apparition des Esprits

**Chapter 5: L'Appar****ition des Esprits**

The windows were open. Cool air and city sounds filled the room, distant and oddly idyllic even to Leliana's worldly ears, who knew better than to believe the fairy tale of it. There was nothing picturesque or peaceful. Life in the city was hard, as hard as anywhere else in the world and people so rarely had hearts of gold, because it took so much effort to hold on to them against the tides of fade that beat them on every shore.

Kameron was fast asleep in her bed. He had stripped off the blood-stained, stolen clothes and left them in an untidy pile on the ground for Leliana to dispose of later. He had washed quickly and then simply dropped into bed. His sleep seemed deep and restful after the exhaustion of the flight and perhaps unjustifiably so.

Leliana herself had tried to find sleep, too, but although she felt bone-weary, no sleep had come. She had curled up in an armchair by the fire, listening to the sound of the city waking up, watching as the twilight gloom was slowly replaced by pale white morning light. Her mind had been empty, where she had expected her thoughts to chase each other. It hadn't the calm emptiness of meditation or prayer, she would have welcomed that. No, this was the end of all her experience. There was nothing there for her to think anymore, because nothing offered any help in the decision she had to make. Trying to avoid it would only make matters much worse than they already were.

In the silence of her own head, she finally got up from her chair and wrote a message, words falling onto the paper out of habit, because she was a minstrel before she was a bard and her fingers knew how to draw the words almost on their own.

She left the message on the pillow by Kameron's head and slipped away soundlessly.

* * *

The morning sun drew murky lines of brightness across Ophélie's bedroom. Streaks which should have been golden but were watered down by the weather into a pale imitation of their rightful brilliance. It seemed mundane and the events of the previous night appeared as a stage-play to her, too shrill and theatrical to fit into this world. Then again, her life had been turning for the strange ever since she had found a bleeding elf in the greenhouse in her garden. Even though he had been near death, he had been willing to joke and flirt with her while her servants patched him up as well they could.

In hindsight, she could not say what had prompted her to shelter him, beyond childish fantasies of romance and she had been too old and world-weary even then to still believe in them. Her elf, she had known, was not going to be a dashing hero to save her from a loveless marriage and magic her away into a life of adventure. These were stories for playwrights.

Yet, in his way, he had done exactly that.

She stretched her arms over her head and with the same movement reached for the bell by her bedside to summon a maid. She told the curtseying girl to prepare breakfast and settled back into her pillows, chasing the detached peace of mind left by just waking up.

The elf, she learned, was an assassin and not just any assassin, but one of the Antivan Crows. She failed to pry more from him, although he seemed to have enjoyed teasing her, throwing her a tidbit of information or a clue to chase. She had known all along he was toying with her to keep himself safe while he healed and she was a willing accomplice to that. Never in a million years would she have alerted the authorities to his presence on her estate, she would never have him struck in chains by her guards and dragged off.

He had recovered faster than she had liked, though she could not begrudge it to him. He left as soon as he was able and Ophélie considered the adventure over.

Until the Crow had come back one night, a ragtag group of strangers in tow, none of whom likely to inspire any confidence. Her Crow had been distracted, something tense about him, haunted, but also dangerous. Not quite the charming elf he had been upon their first meeting, but someone who served as a perfect reminder of what an assassin actually did.

She had her suspicions about them all, but willingly held her tongue for the fun of playing along.

The low creak of the door pulled her from her thoughts. A habitual scowl already crawled on her face at the realisation that her maid had failed to knock, but as she sat up in bed to scold her, she found it suddenly quite difficult to remember _what _she felt at all.

Employing all his honed senses and the perfect balance of his limbs, Hawke manoeuvred a large silver tray through the door with barely more than a low whisper of dishes and cutlery shifting with his movement. He made a little flourish as he turned and while Ophélie already saw milk and juice splash from their carafes, no disaster actually happened. Hawke gave the door a slight kick with the heel of one boot to make it fall closed. He lowered the tray a little so he could at her over the piles of food assembled there.

He grinned, "As you can see, I suffered a terrible conscience last night."

"This is an apology?" she asked skeptically. Although she hadn't made up her mind about all this yet, she sat up fully and flattened some of her blankets to allow Hawke to put the tray down on the bed.

"Or it could be an attempt to fatten you up, because my dark secret isn't what you think it is," he shrugged. He gave a quick look, assessing her mood, before folding one leg under him and sit down on the foot of the bed, leaning his weight on one extended arm. The soft mattress and billowing feather bed swallowed his hand to the wrist.

She kept looking at him rather than the food between them. A thin line of fragrant steam rose from a teapot. "What do you think I think is your dark secret?" she asked.

He put his head back and laughed, but kept watching her. She wasn't entirely sure the laughter reached his eyes. She wanted to regain some of her anger from last night, the feeling that had welled up in her throat after he had left her so abruptly, the feeling of being marginalised in his eyes, because she was nothing but a _business partner _to him. It was difficult, though, in the morning light and the dazzle of Hawke's laughter.

"I couldn't begin to guess," he finally said. "Something raunchy enough to want to keep me, it seems."

There was nothing to be gained by staring at him, Ophélie realised. He would only mesmerise her more. She wanted something from him, more than he was willing to give. Falling for him would only make things more difficult for her. She needed to keep her head in the game.

She frowned down on the tray. Bread and jam and fresh fruit, milk and juice and steaming tea. Surprising how he seemed to have managed to assembled everything she liked. She hadn't thought he paid that much attention to her. Sapphire-coloured flowers were tied together by a thin strip of silk, resting on the lace of a folded napkin.

"You assume the offer is still valid," she said lightly, picked up a fluffy bun and tore off a piece.

"I assume it is," Hawke said in the same tone. The bed shifted under his weight as he moved and Ophélie glanced up to see as he leaned his back on the bedpost. "Why would you withdraw it?"

Casually, she dipped the bun into the milk. "After an armed elf walked into my bedroom in the middle of the night and you threw me out of it," she recounted. "Out in the hallway with the servants! I don't even want to know the kind of rumours this has sparked."

"Fenris cannot possibly have been the first elf in a noble lady's bedroom."

"No doubt," Ophélie agreed. "But usually she is there with him."

Hawke laughed again. He watched quietly for a little while longer while she deftly took the bun apart. When he spoke again, his tone had become a little more serious. He said, "My life is complicated. I always thought that was part of my appeal."

"That was unacceptable."

"It happened," he clarified. "There is my apology. You've already dug in too deep to reject it now."

It was hard to argue with her mouth full, but she managed to send him a somewhat baleful look anyway. He was right, however, she had never given up her little girl dreams of adventure and she still wanted him in her life.

She felt his gaze on her.

Quietly, he said, "I've been thinking about what you said."

She had swallowed and picked up the tea; warmth was seeping through the cup and stinging her skin as she went perfectly still.

Hawke continued, "Maybe there is a future for me here."

"Here?" she heard herself say as if from a great distance. "Or with me?"

A quick smile crossed his face. The morning's cool light was unkind of the lines on his face, making him look older underneath the layer of cheerfulness he had affected.

"So your offer _is _still valid?"

Carefully, she put the cup back on the tray, relaxing her heated fingers. She sat back to regard him and couldn't quite keep the eagerness from her voice, realising she might really have him after all, she had found a hook to hold. "Who are you _really, _Seigneur Ballagh?"

He didn't seem to acknowledge the question in more than a slight shake of his head and another short flash of a toothy smile. "I have things I need to finish. I'm not free." He made a short gesture with one hand. "And you'll end up more involved than any of us wanted. My friends need a place to stay."

"Your friends?" she echoed slowly.

"Gervaise has put them in a room on the ground floor and that's where they should stay for a few days."

"Only a few days?"

"I don't know," Hawke said, suppressing a sigh and a frown. "In fact, I have absolutely no idea how long it will take. It's not negotiable, either. I won't abandon them, not for you or your wealth or a place in your bed. It's very simple, actually."

The aftertaste of tea and jam was slowly turning to ashes in her mouth as the assuaged anger flared up again. "You don't make demands like that," she snapped.

Hawke seemed unimpressed, nothing tensed in his posture and the blithe-over-grave juxtaposition of his face remained. "I make no demands. We aren't arguing over a contract, I hope. I don't sell quite _that_ cheaply. My friends are safe here for as long as it takes. And when it's _done_, I'll look for a future. Maybe one with you."

"You expect I'll…" she trailed off into silence, too exasperated to even find a proper response. Angrily she gave the tray a shove, dishes and cutlery chittered thinly, veiled by the blankets. The tray didn't get far, nothing toppled or spilled.

Ophélie crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Hawke. "I don't sell quite that cheaply."

Her anger crested up and shattered on his amusement. He was watching her from clever eyes, still and serene in the morning light. And she _knew _much was at stake for him, even if she was utterly in the dark about what it truly was. If she turned him away now, his situation would be dire and yet, there was no show of fear she could identify.

Unexpectedly, Hawke moved. He shook himself free of his relaxed pose, pulled his hand from the depth of the bedding only to put it between them, leaning forward. The tray dipped sideways again, but all thought of it was long forgotten with Hawke bringing their faces close together. He dropped his voice so low she could _feel _the vibration of it.

He said, "No."

Despite herself, she found herself leaning in herself, mesmerised by how close his lips were. It would be so easy to close the distance, seal the deal at whatever terms they had arrived at. _Almost almost _she chanted in her mind and her skin tingled with his closeness. She opened her mouth, but instead of the kiss she wanted, she said, "Who are you?"

He drew back for no more than a fraction and froze there, but his face revealed nothing. "Everything will change if I say that," he cooed, keeping his tone perfectly balanced between threat and promise.

"So?"

Deliberately, he broke the mood. Pulling back from her, unravelling the spell he had woven with a dismissive shake of his head and a sardonically arched eyebrow. "_And _I would have to kill you, of course," he said breezily.

Some of the tea had spilled from the cup, soaking the napkin and the half-eaten bun had slithered from the tray, leaving a trail of crumbs behind.

Hawke sauntered to the windows and pushed the curtains aside, allowing him to open the windows wide. It created an odd invasion of reality, sound and cool air curling inside reluctantly.

She had her suspicions, she didn't need the confirmation now. "But when you come to stay with me," she said. "I want to know."

He turned away from the window and the light framed him, hiding his face, but the laughter was back in his voice. "Yes," he conceded. "I can do that."

He shook into motion and crossed the room for the door.

Ophélie frowned as she saw that. "Wait, where are you going?"

"I'm trying not to overstay my welcome," he said. "Seeing as I tend to be disruptive to the peace of your bedroom."

Ophélie put the bun back, then picked up the tray. She climbed from the bed and took a few steps toward him, putting the tray down on a table by the door. "I don't think I mind _some _disruption." She gave him a sharp look. "Unless you are too drunk again."

If the slight barb connected at all, he didn't show it.

"This early in the day?" he asked. "Only if I haven't been to bed, yet." He pretended to think. "Which I haven't, now that you mention it."

But the smirk was firmly on his face now, if the good humour was fake it was played too well for her to see through. It wasn't just his life that was complicated, it was the _man_ as well. And it was part of his appeal.

"My bed is right there," she pointed out. "You are quite welcome to it."

For a long moment, he did nothing. Long enough, in fact, until she had herself convinced he was going to turn away again — turn her _down _again — and it had stung the first time. After the discussion they just had had, she wasn't certain she would allow it a second time.

Hawke shrugged. "Good enough for me," he decided.

* * *

Anders stood in the hallway without movement, ignoring the servants' baleful stares and the watchful gaze of Wuffles. Isabela and Merrill were still soundly asleep, but he had had no desire to sleep nor had he been feeling more tired than usual. The conversation with Hawke was haunting him, the truths of it and the tremendous injustices they had inflicted on each other down the years and they still hadn't stopped.

There was something hopeless and selfish about what Hawke was doing, of course. Forcing some blood magic ritual on him to save him from… something. In clear moments, Anders still recognised that both he and Justice had been fundamentally altered the moment they became one and Hawke sought to right what he perceived as something wrong. Except, Anders no longer saw it that way. He was who he was and it was difficult to imagine how he could be someone else.

And in all that, Hawke didn't even realise that he had never known Anders before, he had never met him. He had always loved this changed version of him. What he would feel for the old Anders, if Kameron's ritual succeeded at all, was entirely out in the open.

Anders crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his shoulder into the wall as hard as he could, his entire weight resting there as if he meant to leave a dent, so Hawke would see it when he left. Perhaps it would make him feel guilt, or regret. Perhaps Ophélie would see it and withdraw her talons from Hawke's flesh, recognising the greater claim.

Wuffles padded toward him and put his nose to Anders leg in a firm push.

"No," Anders said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Wuffles whined, but sat back from him, still watching him attentively. It was still somewhat puzzling to Anders how much and how well the mabari understood what was going on. His behaviour suggested he knew well enough that Anders needed to be watched somehow, but not treated as an enemy.

"You can hear what they are saying, can't you?" Anders asked the mabari. Wuffles pricked his ears forward and wagged his short tail. "I don't know if I envy you."

Anders clenched his teeth. There had been voices before, but too quiet to make out words, not even enough to gauge how well the discussion was going. If Ophélie decided to throw them out, all they had left was Kameron's vague promise of refuge in Gwaren and Anders would rather not take him up on it. Kameron could not be trusted. Moreover, Anders couldn't trust himself around Kameron, not for any length of time. Besides, who knew how long it would be convenient for Kameron to protect them.

He heard a woman's laugh, faint through the solid door. Wuffles whined again as if in an attempt to mask the sound. Anders made a sharp gesture with one hand and the mabari stopped. "I'm staying right here," Anders said again. He was glad that the mabari couldn't call him out on the utter stupidity of it. He didn't have to explain to him that this was part of his penance.

* * *

The Templars had done their best to hide the truth of events. To a casual observer, very little would seem out of place; from their patrols around the White Spire and their training exercises. Some news had gone out, of course, trouble in the alienage — itself nothing of particular interest to most people in Val Royeaux — and an apostate putting up slightly more of a fight than usual. The public mustn't be alarmed, the times were bad enough after all and the last thing anyone needed was more unrest.

To Leliana's perceptive eyes and her intimate knowledge of what had truly happened, it was quite obvious. The Templars were nervous, if not downright frightened. The slaughter in Kameron's wake had shaken their confidence on a level they hadn't experienced in a long while. Most apostates tended to surrender rather than fight, especially here, where the very elite of the Templars were poised against them. Even if they resisted, they usually didn't last long and failed to do much lasting damage to the Templars. Since the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry, few apostates were given the benefit of doubt and killed as maleficarum before they had the chance do much harm.

Kameron had been lucky that the Templar who had taken him in had been willing to listen at all and no doubt that Templar was regretting it now. Though, the Wardens had weight in Orlais, it was an old and powerful order, held in high esteem even among the Chevaliers. And Kameron had a tendency to get his way, even if it didn't always work out as he had intended. For a man who put so little faith in providence, it seemed to rule in his favour every time.

No one challenged Leliana as she made her way. Some doubtlessly recognised her, but no one approached her. Out of respect, perhaps, or because they sensed the darkness of her mood and gave her what space she needed.

The odd, unquiet emptiness in her head still haunted her. Fragments of thoughts and feelings running in circles in her mind, trying to find coherence and a sense of direction. Yet, she was moving, walking with enough outward confidence that no guards blocked her path all the way to the Divine's study.

There were still no words in her mind when she stepped into the airy room and for a moment the stillness nearly beat her to her knees.

Justinia was setting behind her desk, writing, but she put the quill away when she saw Leliana. The Divine's face was earnest, but Leliana didn't presume to read her expression and judge her. It was not her place. It was incredible, how Justinia's mere, collected presence helped soothed Leliana's nerves.

She crossed the room and quietly took a seat opposite Justinia. She stared off into nothingness between them, waiting for the words to come. And then, under Justinia's stern, but kind gaze, something suddenly became clear to Leliana. It hadn't bothered her for many years, a ghost laid to rest a very long time ago, setting her free. But the truth had never been there before for her to grasp. The difference between her and Marjolaine, it was not their skills or the capacity for ruthlessness. Leliana knew she all of that and wielded all those weapons without remorse if it was demanded of her.

She looked up at Justinia and said, "I need to confess."

But Leliana would never be a traitor.

* * *

**References**

Il est du véritable amour comme de **l'apparition des esprits**: tout le monde en parle, mais peu de gens en ont vu. _(True love is like the appearance of ghosts: everyone talks about it but few have seen it.) _

— François de La Rochefoucauld


	6. Scholars' Game

**Chapter 6: Scholars' Game**

Kameron closed the door behind him; it clicked quietly and the noise from the _Cornaline_'s taproom faded and dulled through the thick wood and solid stone. Kameron took several more steps into the room, then stopped again. The curtains were partially drawn and the shadows lingered in the corners despite the bright daylight falling in dust-speckled rays across the open space.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed in the one and a half days of his absence. His travel-coat still hung over the side of the armchair, where he had left it before leaving for the alienage. The heavy chest stood off by the wall, the lock untouched as far as he could see. Even Vigilance still rested in its scabbard on the desk, wrapped in the layers of velvet and leather to conceal it from casual observers.

He had said the truth about people recognising the weapon better than the one who carried it, but he hadn't had the heart to leave it behind. Master Wade's work was never less than excellent, but Vigilance was a class all its own. Before he had a chance to stop himself, he had strode to the desk, sliding his hands along the weapon and feeling the cold radiate even through the layers. He'd have a new scabbard commissioned, he decided, so he could carry it without drawing more attention than necessary.

Something scraped on the floor behind him, so quietly it barely registered on a conscious level. Acting on hard-won battle instinct, Kameron spun around, pulling his dagger free with the movement. He had time to see someone standing behind him, far too close already and well within striking distance. A ray of light slashed across an narrow stretch of exposed throat, just above a rigid collar. Kameron threw his free hand up and around the figure — who brought an arm up, but failed to get a good grip on Kameron's wrist. Kameron dug his fingers into his opponent's neck and felt sinews tighten, the man flinching back. Kameron brought the edge of his dagger up against the other's throat and the struggle stopped before it had even began.

Movement stilled in a precarious balance.

"You still expose your side," Zevran said and the tip of his knife made itself felt under Kameron's arm through the cloth of his shirt. The tip pricked him and a tiny drop of wet blood tickled down his skin.

Kameron bared his teeth and leaned forward until their lips just barely touched across the naked blade pressed into Zevran's throat.

"Is there anything else you want me to expose?" Kameron drawled.

Zevran chuckled, gingerly against the threat of the blade, following Kameron's lips with a hungry look when his Warden drew back a fraction. "Quite a few things, now that you mention it."

The hard beat of thrill had put a sharp glow into Kameron's eyes. Zevran withdrew his knife and sheathed it blindly, without looking away from his Warden. Kameron lingered for longer, tightened his grip on Zevran's neck before suddenly letting go and taking his dagger away. There was no embrace, however, Kameron merely let his forehead drop to Zevran's shoulder and stayed there for no more than a heartbeat's duration, all tension breaking like a bowstring as it snapped.

And then the moment was gone. Kameron straightened away and sheathed the dagger. It was one he had taken from a dead Templar, not the best weapon he had ever seen, but it had served its purpose well enough so far. Perhaps he should keep it as a trophy.

Kameron narrowed his eyes as he finally got a good look at Zevran. A fresh scar ran the breadth of his throat, where Kameron's own dagger had rested just before.

"The Crows?" he asked.

"You would imagine they learned from their mistakes," Zevran remarked lightly. "Perhaps they do this time."

Kameron didn't answer immediately. He stepped past Zevran, giving him a quick kiss as he passed and gripped his arm, pulled him unresisting to the bed and sat him down.

"Put your head back," Kameron ordered and Zevran complied. Kameron traced his fingers along the scar, once, mapping it with his senses before he poured magic into it. He knew it wasn't a pleasant feeling. Healing didn't lend itself to his strengths and he had never bothered to learn much more than what he needed to patch people up in the heat of battle. In the tower, his teachers had never stopped bugging him with it, even Irving, who had otherwise been willing to let him pursue his own interests. Healing was a 'safe' art and all potentially powerful mages were gently _encouraged _to specialise in it.

"I heard there was trouble," Zevran said through clenched teeth.

"I had a bad moment," Kameron shrugged. Skin moulded itself under his fingertips, leaving only an angry red welt behind.

"So it is true?" Zevran asked. "The blood mage apprehended in the alienage was you?"

"It wasn't my fault," Kameron said and the line seemed so uncharacteristic that Zevran began to laugh so hard that Kameron had to stop with his healing.

Zevran used the moment to reach for his Warden, cup his face with both hands and kiss him. Kameron leaned into him, letting himself be kissed, slow and long and deep. Kameron broke away again, slipped his hand along the side of Zevran's face gently, than suddenly used the leverage to pull Zevran's head back again, bringing his other hand back to the scar. The magic seared to Zevran's skin, more painful than the knife that had originally inflicted the wound.

"The Templars drugged me with some version of magebane," Kameron explained matter-of-factly. "It made my head feel strange. I couldn't think straight."

Another hard tuck on skin and Zevran hissed, but held still even as Kameron took his hand away from his forehead. "All I could think of was that needed to get away from them, before they figured out what I was. I panicked."

"You _panicked?" _Zevran repeated. "A sight I would have liked to see."

Kameron pulled a grimace. "I'm sure I can come up with something better to show you."

"I would like to see that, too."

Kameron shook his head slightly, but made no other reply. Instead, he said, "I made a mistake. Things were already complicated in the beginning, Maker knows what happens now. I take it you haven't been in Val Royeaux long?"

"I came here directly, but the landlord was adamant not to let me in your room while you were gone. I thought I would not bother him with it, then."

"The Templars will lock the city down," Kameron continued. "I had an exit strategy, but I don't think any ship for Ferelden is going to leave without the Templars making absolutely sure there are no mages."

"We could ride," Zevran offered. "They can't control all city gates, not with the masses coming and going every day."

"Horses," Kameron chewed a little on the word as if he didn't like the taste of it. "Still a gamble, we'll look suspicious no matter what we do. Besides, we can't leave yet. I still need to try and help Anders and Justice."

"We could take ship for somewhere else," Zevran offered. "I'd rather not watch you on a horse from here to Val Chevin."

"What is it about you and watching me?" Kameron asked and finally took his hands away from Zevran. The scar was almost gone, only a faint pink line on smooth, tanned skin served as a reminder that it had ever been there at all.

"Everyone has a favourite pastime," Zevran chuckled. "And you are quite enticing to watch." He considered. "Not on a horse, maybe, but _ah_, all those cramped muscles I could help you with once we made camp…"

"A ship to Val Chevin will be fine."

Zevran laughed again. He let himself fall back on the bed, resting on bent elbows. "That is all? I confess I was hoping for a more _passionate _reunion after so many months apart."

Kameron rubbed his hand down his face. "So was I, but I still feel the effects of the magebane and I won't go anywhere near the Fade before it's completely gone. I need to _rest, _Zev."

Zevran shook his head firmly. "You need to _relax." _He sat back up and patted the bed by his side. "I'll give you a nice, long massage. You know that feels good and I get my hands all over you. Everyone wins."

Kameron hesitated for a long minute, then a slow smile broke the stoic mask of his face as he didn't bother hiding the line of his thoughts, the changing of his mind as it occurred. Kameron liked to think he was a man of his word, but surely some leeway could be given to lovers who had spent the past few months apart? He pulled the laces loose from his shirt and slipped out of it.

Zevran watched with a grin as Kameron undressed. "This is going to make things… _hard," _he observed eventually.

"Well, I thought we could go for a win-win scenario after all."

* * *

A new sort of routine settled in in the days that followed the incident with Kameron in the White Spire. It would be unwise to return to the alienage, just in case someone saw an opportunity to curry favours with the Templars by pointing out this very odd group of strangers who had made such a suspiciously quick exit. Anders refused to stay with Kameron Amell for the same reason he didn't want to go to Gwaren. The man was an abrasion on his self-control and besides, a place as public as an inn might not be a good idea anyway.

The others rearranged themselves around guarding him, just as they had done before. The rest of the time Isabela cast about for Fenris and where he might have gone. She swore he wouldn't have left, even had he had any idea of where to go. Personally, Anders still thought Fenris would eventually find his way to Starkhaven — or directly to the Templars — but he never said so.

Merrill had overwhelmed any misgivings Gervaise and the rest of the staff might have had about 'knife-ears'. It was too easy to fall for Merrill's exuberance, to buy the genuine innocence her attitude displayed. She got to working in the herb garden and helping in the kitchens or watching the assorted children of the servants as their parents worked. The irony, of course, seemed entirely lost on Merrill and the people of Ophélie's estate were as oblivious as could be. But even in his darker moments Anders didn't think Merrill would intentionally hurt anyone, though there was never any telling what would happen if it was _her _who slipped up and not Anders.

They exchanged a message with Kameron, making sure everyone was as safe as the circumstances allowed. Kameron wrote he would need several days until he trusted his mind with the intricacies of the ritual he would attempt and it would be best for everyone if there was no more contact between them until then.

Anders felt like the date of his execution had been postponed at the last minute, equally a blessing and further punishment.

Hawke had also taken up permanent residence in Ophélie's bedroom, but Anders and Hawke had barely exchanged two words since coming to Ophélie's house. Maybe Hawke was right and their _love _had never been anything but interdependency, a system of mutual exploitation that had spiralled into inevitable disaster.

Hawke was close to Ophélie, though if it was a new thing, or if he simply picked up where their relationship had suffered its dent, was beyond Anders to guess.

Oddly enough, the brief stint of violence as they had fled the alienage had left Anders much less agitated than he had been while cooped up and hiding in the tiny elven apartment. It even made sense, in a way, the passivity of it was anathema to the ideal of his name and the nature of his mission. His mind had settled, if only for a time, and the others had sensed it, too.

No one had stalked him outside, only Wuffles barely left his side these days and while the mabari was hardly his favourite companion, he was also mostly quiet and unobtrusive. And best of all, the old black cat who kept the kitchens and cellars of the townhouse free of mice, had not been deterred by the huge dog in the least.

For the first time in a long while, Anders knew a hint of peace. Though even this was laced with bitterness at the oncoming loss.

He had settled himself on the stone steps leading into the basement, at the edge of an open yard. A low wall, overgrown by ivy, separated the guards' training area from the baroness' garden. Tall trees from it threw soft shadows across it, dappled and dancing in the late afternoon sun, making the movement on the yard dreamlike and surreal, the sharp violence of their sparring both at odds and perfectly balanced with the mood.

Hawke was training with them, stealing himself into their admiration so subtly you could almost believe he wasn't doing it intentionally. Over the years, Anders had seen enough devastating fighters to have an idea about the true measure of Hawke's skill and even at his worst, Hawke stood head and shoulders above the best and most experienced of Ophélie's house-guards, yet Hawke was very careful about how much of it he showed. He was _better _than them, but not so spectacularly they would resent him for it.

Something similar had marked Hawke's relationship with the miners at the Bone Pit, where Hawke had been former Fereldan refugee, self-made man, benefactor and master in equal parts and the workers had adored him for it.

Anders had been sure Hawke would be the last to desert him, even as the others all trickled away one by one, but seeing him with Ophélie made him wonder. It looked as if Hawke was building something new here, something lasting. If he played his cards right, no one in Orlais would actually care too much about what had happened in Kirkwall. Even now, there were enough people willing to see only the hero in Hawke, caught up in events brought on by someone else's madness. Orlesians were known to forgive even the most outrageous scandals if their perpetrators had enough going for them, after all.

All Hawke would have to do is disavow Anders. Given all that had been between them, perhaps Hawke would not find it such an unbearable tradeoff.

The black cat suddenly appeared out of nowhere, brushing up against Anders' leg in greeting before walking off to the side to jump onto the garden wall and curl up in the brightest patch of sunlight. Anders wasn't sure what he had done to earn her favour. She'd get milk and morsels out of the nearby kitchen far easier than trying to get anything from him. She had even gifted him with a fat mouse the first day he had been in the house.

Had he met Hawke if he had never joined with Justice? It was a useless question, but one he could not quite stop himself from pursuing. Warden business could have brought him to Kirkwall, with so many entrances to the Deep Roads barely a stone's throw away. He could have stayed for a while, deciding to help the refugees. Kameron had still been Commander of the Grey back then and he wouldn't have refused Anders' request. And there would have been Hawke, looking for the maps, just as harebrained and brilliant as ever.

History wouldn't have to have been so differently without Justice. All the important things might still have been there and perhaps even better, free of so much emotional baggage. Anders would have had enough darkness within him, even so. Enough to keep Hawke interested, surely. Enough craziness to complement all the madness the man attracted at every corner.

But how could he even think that? How _dared_ he betray his noble goal? He had brought harm into the world with what he had done, but the world had always been a terrible place where almost everything was _wrong; _where the greedy and the selfish enslaved who they could and had all the civilisations bow the their every whims. Ferelden, Orlais, Tevinter, it made no difference, it was all the same immoral quagmire. No wonder all the demons longed to cross the Veil, no where else could they spread their vile aspects as they could here.

The cat had began to snore, quite loudly and deeply for such a delicate creature. Anders wanted to reach for her and pet her, he imagined the soft fur, soaked in warmth. Across the yard, Hawke helped set up archery targets. Archery was a good idea, Anders thought vaguely, where Hawke was weakest and most likely where the guards might earn a draw — or even a win — against him.

And because there was truly no such thing as Justice, Kameron Amell stepped into the yard with Zevran, but rather than join Hawke, he lingered just inside the gate to watch. His mere presence seemed to cool the air and leach the gold from the light and leave it a bleak shell of itself. The wind picked up just then, making the treetops hiss.

Wuffles pricked his ears forward and rose to attention, ready to interfere, perhaps sensing Kameron's wickedness or Anders sudden blackening mood. Anders liked to think it was the former.

Finished with the targets, Hawke spotted the newcomers and lifted his hand in greeting. He exchanged a few words with the man next to him, gave him a quick pad on the back and sauntered over to join Kameron and Zevran.

Anders rose to his feet and stood, as all three of them turned their attention to him. He held himself deliberately straight, unwilling to give either of them — especially his former commander — any show of weakness. Still, it was an unwelcome reminder that Kameron and he had not always been so opposed. There had been enough times in Amaranthine when Kameron's way to deal with being a mage had been as inviting as any demon's deal could ever be. Safe within the Wardens, Kameron had no reason to hide his powers, to bow and buckle to the Templars. He didn't even have to pay lip-service to them. More than once, Anders had seen him flaunt it, not least of all when he had faced down Rylock for him.

Thinking of Kameron Amell as an _answer _would lead nowhere, however. Not every mage could, or should, be made a Warden and the Chantry would never allow such even if the idea were somehow workable. No mage should ever be encouraged to walk the path Kameron had chosen, no matter the freedoms it promised.

Squaring his shoulders, Anders set out for them, ignoring the questioning whine of Wuffles as he followed close behind.

"You have licked your wounds long enough, I take it?" Anders asked, bypassing any greeting and hoping to banish whatever wistfulness there might have been with the acid in his tone.

A quick smirk crossed Zevran's face, but he thankfully said nothing.

"My mind has to be clean for this," Kameron replied.

"Ah," Anders made in mockery. "So you have decided to give up blood magic?"

Kameron shook his head. "Be contrary, if you must," he said dismissively. "I'll help you whether you want me to or not."

Anders felt his expression darken. Something black throbbed at the back of his head that he tried to pay no attention to. "You are right. Why would I want to have any say in it? It's only my whole personality you wish to dissect!"

Hawke pushed himself between them. "As a suggestion, maybe we should have this discussion somewhere else? Or we could have it out in the street and charge for the show, that'd work, too."

Anders scowled and Kameron shrugged, then nodded.

Hawke gave a few short orders to the guards he had been training, then lead them into an airy sitting room upstairs. Given its expensive, but outdated plush furniture and the unimaginative flower arrangements on the table was prove that Ophélie was unlikely to come by.

"Wuffles, go fetch Merrill," Hawke said and gave a quick look at Kameron. "I take it you'll need to put your heads together?"

Kameron made no immediate answer. He strode into the room and draped himself on a silk-covered divan. It was just as well that Fenris was gone, because he would have been compelled to slaughter Kameron three times over by now.

Wuffles ran off dutifully and Zevran closed the door behind him, leaning his back on the wall by the door, arms crossed over his chest.

"We'll need some space," Kameron added. "A basement room, ideally, it'll help concentrate the magic."

"I'm sure what you need is right under our feet," Hawke offered. "Ophélie doesn't need to know and the staff will eventually gossip, but not question."

Huffing quietly, Anders crossed the room to the window and stared out. The yard was right below them and the guards had began their archery practice. Some of them were young, but others had seen action before. At least two of them had had Chevalier training before they falling out of favour. They were not a force to be reckoned with, but they were still two dozen fighters who might end having to decide if they wanted to protect two bloodmages and an abomination. It was impossible to tell what side they would pick. Hawke suspected as much and it was part of the reason he was putting so much energy into building up their loyalty.

"I'm sorry we had to delay for so long," Kameron said. "If you are ready, I'd proceed with the ritual tonight."

An odd feeling ran down Anders' spine, cold like dread, squeezing his chest tight, but it lasted only for a second before being replaced by a determined calm. He turned back around and fixed his stare on Kameron. He waited for the hatred to come, but there was nothing.

"What if it doesn't work?" he asked. "What if it does something worse?"

"Are you still afraid of becoming tranquil?" Kameron asked and you could believe he thought such a fear paltry and meaningless.

"If you kill me in the Fade…" Anders began.

Kameron shook his head slowly and his face suddenly became earnest, open and honest, a reminder of the trust they had once shared in Amaranthine, all those years ago.

"I won't kill you," Kameron said. "Not Anders, not Justice. The people under my command are valuable to me."

"I left the Wardens," Anders pointed out, voice laced with bitterness despite everything.

"You were driven away," Kameron said softly. "That's a different thing."

Anders frowned, but he couldn't help accepting the truth in what Kameron said. He didn't realise how his gaze kept digging into Kameron's as precious time trickled away. From the corners of his eyes, he saw as Hawke sat down on the table by the window, laced his fingers and placed his chin there, watching the scene like a cat, too lazy to pounce, but nevertheless entertained by the display.

"You are going to go into the Fade, right?" Hawke asked.

Kameron turned his head, but didn't immediately break the stare. "Which is why I wanted to be in top form, yes."

"I'm coming with you."

It was worth it just to see the flare of surprise on Kameron's controlled features. Anders could almost _see _the thoughts as they chased each other. It was difficult to know whether Kameron shared the impression of similarity between him and Hawke. If he did, he must already know that no argument was likely to deter Hawke at this point.

"You aren't a mage."

"Last time I checked," Hawke agreed. "But a Dalish keeper put me in the Fade without problems. And the two of you have blood magic and lyrium… surely that's not such an impossible feat?"

"Why would you even want to go?" Kameron asked.

Hawke shifted the grip of his hands. He leaned his cheek into his palm, serenely returning Kameron's scrutiny. "Family or no, you _are _a stranger. I like to keep you where I can see you."

"You _distrust _me?" Kameron asked, honest surprise on his face for the second time in the span of mere minutes.

Hawke shook his head. "No, I don't _distrust _you. I merely don't _trust _you. Mincing words, of course, but it's the best I can give you. Take it or leave it."

Unclenching his teeth with some difficulty, Anders said, "And I still don't get a say in any of it?"

Hawke looked at Anders, but his expression didn't change. A single, thin line had appeared between his eyebrows, edged almost like a scar splitting his head. "I'm game," he finally said. "What _do_ you want?"

Anders was rendered speechless, his mind emptied out with just the one question and the seriousness behind it. He remembered their discussion, he knew Hawke wanted to help — _needed _to help him — because he was petrified of losing anyone else. None of them had ever had any _choice _on the matter. Strangely enough, Anders thought of something Sebastian had said, too long ago. He remembered scoffing at the man rather than listening to his words. Sebastian, who paid fervent lip-service to nothing but a washed-out imitation of true justice. He had been right, though: None of them were free.

_Justice, _Anders thought. That's what he wanted with all his heart. Freedom for the mages, but also for the elves in the alienages and the aimlessly wandering Dalish. Even for the Templars, addicted to lyrium and indoctrinated into obedience. He wanted to tear down this world so it could be rebuilt into something worthy of them, until every city everywhere was as perfect as the Golden City had ever been.

It was no answer he could give any of them. Hawke was tired of hearing it, after listening to it over and over again until all the words rang hollow. Hawke who had seen the Chantry in Kirkwall burn and who could no longer believe in the justness of Anders' motivation. And Kameron would only sneer, because he preferred to revel in the bloodied imperfection of the world as it was.

What did he want, then? Beyond the abstract and the ideal?

"I don't want to lose myself," Anders said finally. "I'm no longer Anders as you remember him." He looked at Kameron. "_Anders _died. I am someone else and you would rip me apart to resurrect him."

"And yet, you are already dying," Kameron pointed out. "A mortal body cannot sustain a demon for so long." He lifted his head before Anders had a chance to speak, Kameron amended, "Or a spirit. You are young and being a Warden helps, but your body and mind are wearing out. You are a mage and moreover, you are a healer. If you were your patient, what would you advise?"

"I'm…" Anders began and then trailed off into silence. _Afraid, _he finished in the privacy of his own thoughts. "…tired," he finished.

Even though, the admission wasn't quite the truth, it seemed to release something in his throat and in his mind. He had wanted to die in Kirkwall, he had wanted Hawke to be his judge and executioner, just as Hawke had accused him of and it would have been the ultimate cruelty. But now, forced to live, he knew his work was not done, yet. There was something to what Kameron had said. If Anders allowed himself to waste away there would be no one left who understood the purity of the goal they were fighting for. The mages who were rising up against the Chantry even now, they still needed a leader who would guide them and protect them from easy temptation. Surely it was a goal worthy to live for? Even if it meant submitting to Kameron's vile magic, even if it meant losing a part of himself. Justice had already left his mark on his thoughts and no magic, no matter how powerful or wicked, would be able to burn it away.

"I will submit to your ritual," Anders declared stiffly. _And prove you wrong._

* * *

The penitence's cell was a small square room with smooth walls on all sides. There was no door and no lock, only a woven curtain. These were not cells for prisoners, after all, but for those who willingly sought to seclude themselves away from the chaos of the world. A place for meditation and prayer, where one could face their troubles and sins alone, away from the publicity of the chapels.

The bars in the window were the shape of a sun so that the light would paint their brightness across the floor and the simple carpet and cushion there. The barest comfort, but the Chantry did not punish its sinners beyond of what was needed.

Leliana knew she was hiding. She had told the Divine everything, but under the seal of the confessional, Leliana had rendered Justinia utterly powerless to act on it. It was a bad compromise if ever there had been one and Leliana was beginning to think she had acted rashly, with the impressions of witnessing Kameron's blood magic still fresh on her mind. Seeing how he killed after so many years, it had unsettled something deep within her and her own loyalty had threatened to tear her apart.

In what she had done instead, though, she had betrayed them all equally.

Someone cleared their throat outside the curtain and Leliana opened her eyes. A ray of sunlight cut across one eye and it seared into her brain, making white spots appear in her vision. Irritably, she blinked and shifted a little so her eyes were in shadow.

"Yes?"

"I would want to speak with you."

The voice was familiar, but Leliana couldn't quite place it's owner.

"You _are_ speaking with me."

There was a brief pause and then the curtain was pushed aside and Leliana heard the gentle rattle of heavy boots used to tread lightly. The armoured knight circled Leliana's kneeling form until the light was blocked almost completely. Leliana had to put her head back.

"I am a Seeker of the Chantry," the knight began. She was slender under the bulk of her armour, serious-faced, surrounded by a tightly controlled impatience ready to break.

"I know you," Leliana said, unperturbed by her submissive position, but she wasn't kneeling to the Seeker, she was kneeling in the Maker's light and there was nothing demeaning about that.

The Seeker bowed her head slightly. "I'm Cassandra Pentaghast. I know you, as well."

"What is so important that you must disturb my contemplation?"

Cassandra seemed unimpressed. "I heard many interesting rumours these past few days," she said. "Taken separately they are oddities, but together they form a disturbing picture. I came to clarify and to ask for your support."

"Clarify?" Leliana repeated. She shook her head firmly. "There is nothing to tell."

Cassandra took a step back and then sat down on the narrow bench that ran the circumference of the room. It brought their faces nearly level, though with the light behind Cassandra's head, her expression remained obscured.

"During a raid on the alienage a few days ago, a Warden mage was arrested. At the same time, _eight _Templar knights were killed at the alienage gate. We send for the Wardens to identify the mage was not an apostate, but within only a few hours he broke out of the White Spire, leaving a trail of corpses behind. Most of them, but not all, were apparently killed by blood magic."

Leliana gave her a hard look. "You spin a fascinating story, Seeker. What do you expect me to contribute?"

"The name of the mage, his location and his plans."

"The Wardens keep their own counsel," Leliana said.

Cassandra cut her off with an impatient gesture of her hand and a darkening frown. "The coincidences were already staggering. When I heard you had withdrawn here, it became one too many. You have a history with the Wardens."

"I have been exchanging _letters _with old friends," Leliana pointed out from behind a mask of casualness.

Cassandra leaned in, ever so slightly. "What makes you hide away like this? You know him, don't you. The Warden mage, the one who ended the Blight. The same one who slaughtered his way out of the White Spire."

"Even if it were so, what makes you think I'd know his mind?"

Close as they were, Leliana had the perfect vantage point to watch as Cassandra's temper — known to flare easily — began to push through the seams of her patience. Her eyes narrowed until they were only dangerous slits, allowing for a sharp gleam between the full lashes of her eyes. She would was a striking woman, even with the anger and suspicion leaving its marks on her face.

Cassandra said, "There is corruption everywhere. It's my duty to follow where it leads me. Certain things cannot be allowed."

Leliana allowed a slow smile to split her lips. "That's quite a hefty implication. I'm the left hand of the Divine and what you suggest will fall back on her in the end."

"I suggest nothing," Cassandra snapped, veneer breaking. She pulled back and got to her feet in a tightly controlled move, ill at ease in the confined space where her battle prowess would be as much a liability as an advantage, especially against someone of Leliana's skill-set.

"I come to a _sister _and ask for aid," Cassandra added in the same tone. "Isn't it clear who the enemy is? And who is not?"

Leliana gave her another moment to collect herself — or lose herself more, depending on how you wanted to look at it. Then she picked herself up from the floor with easy grace, despite having kneeled there for a long time. The move jolted Cassandra, made her stop before she could figure out how to pace in the small room.

The faced each other again with the sign of Chantry painted in sunlight across both of them.

"It is clear," Leliana agreed. "More to me than to you, I think. The Warden is no friend of the Chantry, but he is not an enemy, either."

"He is a maleficar," Cassandra countered. "He killed Templars."

"And yet he is no enemy," Leliana insisted. "But your conjecture isn't as far off the mark as I would like, but there is more at play than you could guess."

Cassandra waited, anger flagging sightly now that Leliana was giving her what she wanted. It boiled away just underneath the surface of her control, though, ready to flare up again at the faintest provocation.

"Will you help me?" Cassandra asked with some finality, tired of trading words with Leliana and suspecting she would not come out on top against a bard.

Leliana considered for a long minute, weighting options, trying to gauge all the variables. This was why she had decided to come here in the first place, after all, hoping she could avoid just such an outcome. But Cassandra was not a woman she could cow or play and Cassandra had figured out too much on her own already. She had already sunk her teeth in and she wouldn't be a Seeker of her repute if she knew how to let go.

"You might want to make sure nothing illicit goes on in baroness Ophélie's townhouse," Leliana offered.

Cassandra's expression made clear that she knew Leliana was giving her next to nothing, just a hint, a lead, just as likely to trip her as it was to truly help. But Cassandra was no idiot and she knew pushing Leliana any harder would only backfire and the bard did have connection and was herself almost beyond suspicion.

"Thank you," Cassandra said through clenched teeth in a voice more suited to death threats.

"It's less than you hoped," Leliana admitted. "I wish you, you'll never find yourself in my position."

With that, Cassandra's expression softened almost imperceptibly. "I understand," she finally said. "Thank you again. Sister."

* * *

**References**

"'What if' is a game for scholars." — The Lion in Winter

Zevran's scar — "DA2 Zevran Fix" by TevinterSlave at nexusmods

* * *

**Author's Note:** I had originally intended for this story to preserve a kind of status quo so it would fit more or less comfortably between DAII and DAIII, however, I'm not very good at pulling punches and avoiding epicness when it's within my grasp. Consider the story AU, though as always, my changes are as minimal as I can make them.

Additionally, I have no idea if the Chantry shares Catholic ideas about confessions, but considering their other similarities it's not too much of a stretch.


	7. Words of Faith

**Chapter 7: Words of Faith**

* * *

"What was wrong with him?" Zevran asked as he strode down the street at Isabela's side. The sidewalk was crowded in the late afternoon and the air had the scent of saltwater and fish, almost close enough to the harbour to hear the waves as they beat against the shore.

Isabela pulled a face. "I'd rather be sailing with Gully of all people," she pointed out. "Harvay is a coward."

"Which would matter if we were going to war," Zevran said. "But since we are running away, isn't a coward exactly what we need?"

Isabela laughed and linked arms with him, dragging him close to her side. "Maybe I just like having you along for a stroll."

"Through one dingy tavern after another?" Zevran chuckled. "I can't say I'd complain."

She patted his arm with her other hand. "Don't worry, we'll get this sorted. Pirate captains are like fruit. Sometimes you need to dig through several crates until you find one that's not rotten."

"I defer to your expertise," Zevran said.

In truth, Isabela _did _enjoy their tour. It was the cheap ale — or beer, or rum — that they drunk over negotiations in each tavern and letting the alcohol put a sway in her swagger that spoke of storms on the open sea. Looking for a captain willing to pick them up in a bay north of Val Royeaux — when they would, more likely than not, have Templars in hot pursuit on their heels. They needed someone who enough steel in his balls to make the run past the blockades and take them into Ferelden waters, ideally to Gwaren, but Amaranthine would be good enough. Sadly, a 'decent pirate' was something of an oxymoron and one who would not decide to sell them to the highest bidder at the first opportunity would be even harder to come by.

Isabela had enough acquaintances, but few enough of those she would trust her life to, let alone her friends' lives.

"So," she began teasingly. "Married life suits you."

Zevran laughed again. "Does that surprise you, my dear Isabela?"

"I'm not arguing your taste, Kameron is good for a tumble, or two, or a few more, but I don't know if I'd be coming back for more after eight years."

Zevran pretended to think on it, but the satisfied grin stayed firmly on his face. She could see it from the corners of her eyes.

"You haven't been in Kirkwall nearly that long, have you?"

"Shush," Isabela huffed, though in good humour. "Of course I have, but that wasn't about sex. Well, not _only_."

He nodded, "And there you go, making my point for me."

He swung them both around and stopped in front of an open doorway. The door had been torn out a long time ago, leaving a few splintered boards hanging off rusty hinges. Zevran put his head back and scanned the front of the building, squinting a little in the sun. "_Mermaid's Bust,"_ he read from a withered sign. "I think I can still make out a nipple."

"That's not a nipple," Isabela joined him in scanning the sign.

"On a _mermaid?" _Zevran asked curiously after a moment's contemplation. "Unlikely, if you ask me."

Isabela shrugged. "Sailors don't always think things through," she said and tucked on his arm. "Come on, Cross-Eye Aed used to hang out here. Not sure if he's in town, but if we can get him, we should."

Zevran had been a pleasure to watch all afternoon. Relaxed, flirty and charming, but matching every gaudy joke stroke for stroke as she threw it at him. He had no sense of propriety and she had yet to find something that would scandalise him. And then, as she steered him through the doorway of the _Mermaid's Bust _he just shed his skin, as if the border of sunlight and shadow tore it away and he became the assassin so convincingly he even seemed taller by her side.

It had been their game from the start. Isabela did the talking and Zevran lurked around, being silently menacing. It gave them the appearance of strength when they, in fact, had very little to bargain with. Kameron had deep pockets and Hawke could draw from Ophélie as he pleased, but even pirates had a sense of self-preservation that kicked in at some point. Smuggling apostates had been a good source o income for many, but the times had changed and apostates had became too hot to touch for most of them.

Isabela stopped right inside to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Smoke hung thick below the low ceiling, acidic-sweet scents of various tobaccos mixing into an ungodly stench as counterpoint to cheap, spilled ale with a note of fresh vomit. It was too early for a party, the people hanging around the place drinking were into it for serious business; drowning sorrows or debating deals as the situation demanded. A girl was busy dispersing mugs from an oversized tray and she had to suffer only the occasional grope, but no true interruption of her work.

"We are in luck," Isabela sat, spotting Cross-Eye Aed in a corner, playing cards with a dwarf.

Despite what the name might suggest, it was difficult to be sure if Aed was indeed cross-eyed or not. A pitch-black eyepatch covered his left eye and a flap of leather hung down over his cheek and over his ear to tuck away past his collar.

He spotted her quicker than she would have liked, but there was no faulting Aed's instincts. He glanced up from the cards to watch her with amused curiosity.

"Isabela?" he greeted her with honest surprise. "Haven't you been land-bound over in Kirkwall?"

It was a bad sign, tossing such a question directly at her before she had even sat down, before trading jokes and insults and a mug of ale. He must have known she was in Val Royeaux; in itself that wasn't surprising, but it still bothered her. Who knew what else he had puzzled together?

"Unfortunately," Isabela groaned and picked up a nearby chair to sit down on. Aed gave his cards a last look, shrugged and put them away. He exchanged a long look with the dwarf, who then put his own cards down, quietly gathered his winnings and left the table.

"As it so happens, you are just the man I was looking for," Isabela said.

Aed gave her a toothy grin, "You are still not my type."

"Didn't think that was likely to change," Isabela agreed. "I should have said you are just the _captain _I was looking for."

"You've been half a dozen other places like this before coming here," Aed said. "If you must flatter, at least make it believable."

She managed to hide her surprise, if just barely. It was a good thing she had Zevran behind her, otherwise she would have been compelled to look over her shoulder, scan the room again for any danger and giving her away. Or more away, as the case may be.

She dropped her voice a little. "You've been watching me?"

"Not really, but a few old friends came by earlier, said you are on the lookout for an idiot captain. Maybe I _am _flattered that it took you so long. Everyone else has turned you down, haven't they?"

"We need a ship," Isabela said. "Ideally to Gwaren, but we'll take Amaranthine or Jader."

"Passengers, I take it?"

"There are six of us."

Aed stroked his stubbly chin. "Templars, or at least their lackeys, are searching every ship before it leaves harbour. You wouldn't be here if that didn't bother you. Six people are hard to hide, even on the _Fury."_

"There are a few bays where you can anchor between here and Val Chevin. Sneaking out of the city on foot will be easier, then we make a run for it and you pick us up."

"Have you tried to anchor in one of those recently?" Aed frowned. "Sandy and low reefs, rogue winds. I ain't parking there for any length of time."

"It'd be only a day," Isabela insisted. "And I have anchored there. It's doable."

"Says the captain without a ship."

"Hey, I'm not pointing out all _your _shortcomings, am I? Maybe I'm sensitive about that."

She played up her indignant huff a little to cover her excitement. Aed seemed interested, if not exactly enthusiastic. He was a good captain, trustworthy enough for a pirate in that he was much more likely to keep his word than break it.

Her outburst didn't seem to impress him much. He took a deep gulp from his mug, then set it back down with a _clunk. _"What's in it for me?"

"Good money," Isabela said immediately. It was their only asset, after all, no reason to be shy about it.

Zevran, who had been slowly pacing the entire tavern and making everyone nervous, suddenly appeared behind her and added, "And the favour of the Teryn of Gwaren and through him, the favour of the King of Ferelden. And I hear Amaranthine is paying their privateers quite handsomely."

Isabela caught the gleam in Aed's eyes before he looked away, staring down on the table thoughtfully. She left him his moment, trying not be too envious of being in his place. This, being offered some dangerous stunt, a race with your ship, illicit cargo, slipping by under the authorities' nose. Maybe a little swashbuckling fight or two…

_Of course _that's when things began to go sour again.

"You're Captain Isabela?" a voice asked from behind. It had an ugly leer in it that could mean nothing good.

Several things registered simultaneously. One, it had become ever so slightly darker in the last moment, presumably because someone — or several someones — were standing behind her. Two, Zevran took one fluid step away from her and the table, hand closing loosely around the hilt of his dagger. Three, Aed looked utterly furious at something behind her shoulder.

She knew that tone of voice: leery, condescending, cock-sure. No one ever spoke like that if they weren't out for at least a brawl, or maybe even a knifing. Being addressed by name made it worse.

She caught Zevran's gaze and held it just long enough to make sure he was willing to let her lead. This was her territory, after all.

Slowly, she slipped free of her chair without moving it even in the slightest, letting her body move like water, fluid and silent. Not that it made a difference. More than a half a dozen sailors, men and women and a few elves of either gender, took up space in the tavern's taproom. By their appearance and bearing, Isabela supposed they all belonged to one band or gang and most of them had already drawn their weapons.

Isabela let her gaze settle on the speaker in a mixture of disdain and confusion. "Not really," she said. "_Heard _of her, ain't her."

"Just one rack like that around!" someone yelled from the side to hoots and catcalls.

"You should get out more," Isabela suggested.

Unlike her, Aed made no attempt to be silent or unobtrusive as he pushed his chair away from the table to get up. He was lanky and no longer young, but he was also a head taller than Isabela and the sinews on his arms looked like wound steel.

"It's very impolite to intrude on a man's business talks," he said.

The first speaker leered at Aed, "You're not a proper man, so that's okay then."

Isabela had known that she couldn't stop a fight from breaking out. The sheer number arrayed against them meant their leader would never back out and risk losing face in front of his men.

"There is a good sum of money on your head," the group's leader said. "You and an elf with tattoos, must be you. Better get out of my way, Aed, before I find someone willing to pay for you, too."

The _Mermaid's Bust _was filled with cut-throats, of one kind or another, and few of them enjoyed having their drink interrupted anymore than Isabela would have, in their place. Everywhere chairs were pushed back and sailors rose to their feet and drew their knives. Only the Maker would know on whose side they would come down on, though, and most of them wouldn't care either way for the most part. It was Aed's haunt, chances were he did have some friends around, for whatever that was worth.

Aed gave a sharp snarl at being insulted the second time, almost like a sign that it was time to strike, but in truth the moment had come on its own. _Strike now,_ it said in a lover's voice, _there are no more words to try. This will be settled in blood. _

Well, then.

The fight splintered into separate set pieces, an order in what must be utter chaos to the uninitiated. Nothing but a tangled flurry of fists on flesh on steel, of groaning men and groaning furniture. Ale spilled in great puddles, sticky treacherous patches on the floor and wet skin. Shabby clothes tore under grips and tugs, sending people stumbling for balance into another ball of fighters, pulling them loose of each other and snapping them back to new targets indiscriminately.

The gang leader had tried to lunge for Isabela the moment the fight broke out, but he was clumsy and slow, the direction of his gaze revealing his strikes long in advance. Dodging his fists was hardly a challenge, Isabela simply wasn't there when he came at her, sidestepping out of his reach. Only then did he draw his weapon, a short-sword of unusual make, Isabela used the chance to gauge it and its threat value.

She kicked the feet away from under her attacker, rammed her elbow down on his back as he buckled. It was so easy, it was almost a disappointment.

Two of his friends launched themselves at her, but Isabela had enough time and space to draw the daggers from their sheathes on her back. She twitched further to the side and let the one closest to her run directly into the edge of the blade. His own momentum helped the dagger cut through his leather jerkin and slit the cloth and skin underneath. Painful, Isabela judged, but too shallow to be quickly fatal. She danced around him, hammered her other dagger into the other attacker's face, stabbing it through his cheek and feeling the resistance of bone. The harsh scraping sound it made was audible even above the din of the fighting.

Alliances were becoming increasingly muddied. Isabela hadn't had a good look at all of the would-be bounty-hunter's friends and the chaos had tossed them around already. Everyone was fighting everyone, from what she could tell. She blocked the strike of a blade to her throat, and twisted the lock until she felt the other's grip become awkward, the wrist twisting until it was overstrained.

She struck with the other hand, left a long gash on the inside of her opponent's arm. She left him there, jumped on the table where Aed had been playing cards before for a quick vantage point.

Aed was the centre of a knot of attackers, standing out among them by his height alone and how budging seemed to be beneath him. Isabela had had a little scuffle with him, years ago and also in a brawl. Hitting him had felt no different to hitting a statue. No reason to worry about their way out of Val Royeaux, then. As she watched, she saw others make their way to the group, friends and new foes both, but Aed had already spotted them too.

On the other side of the tavern, Zevran was a blur of blades and movement and death, almost invisible, hitting his targets before they even knew he was there at all. She wouldn't be surprised if he came out of all this without having been touched at all.

Finding the situation firmly under control — for a given value of 'control' — Isabela laughed, jumped from the table and onto a woman armed with a meat cleaver.

* * *

Despite himself, Anders found himself strangely fascinated by the preparations for the ritual. They were set up in the basement, a side-room to the main wine-cellar where a few additional barrels were stored. Their racks occupied only a quarter of the room, leaving the rest empty.

Merrill had meticulously swiped the floor until there was no hint of dust remaining on the rough stones. She hadn't seemed pleased with the result. The large, stones left deep gaps between them, making it difficult to draw the elaborate glyphs with the necessary accuracy. He had expected her to need blood even for those, but simple chalk seemed to work just as well.

Anders tilted his head, changing the perspective on the figures, but they didn't become any more familiar. Maybe they were elven, not learned from a demon at all.

Two bowls were set up in the centre of the ward, a smaller one inside a larger. Merrill had poured several bottles of lyrium potions into the outer bowl, until it was filled almost to the brim. The lyrium's faint glow added something eerie to the firelight from the torches around the walls. He could hear it singing, just on the edge of his perception, a lure to be sure, but one that left him strangely at peace.

Kameron sat on a crate by the wall, a heavy tome on his knees. Occasionally he would give directions and Merrill would nod and apply some new line to the glyphs. The tome was clearly old, battered nearly out of shape and its pages were so thin Anders expected them to tear every time Kameron turned a page.

A thoughtful frown had settled on Kameron's face and it deepened the further they progressed, no doubt realising the same thing as Anders, namely that Merrill understood a lot more about this than he did. Which, in turn, was an interesting observation all its own. There had never been any doubting Kameron Amell's power, an open secret even in the Tower and before his Harrowing. If nothing else, Irving's interest in him would have revealed as much. But Kameron had left the Tower barely out of his studies, there were refinements of skill he never had a chance to develop. Everything else he knew would be mostly self-study and the bits and pieces he picked up from the mages he journeyed with. But by its very nature it was mostly combat magic. How to deal damage as fast and as precisely as possible, how to cast on the run or with a sword in hand. _Nothing _as elaborate as this at all.

"Why do we need the blood magic at all?" Anders asked. "Marethari send us into the Fade without it."

Merrill looked up and met his gaze across the lyrium glow. "It was a different ritual and it was meant to do something completely different. It was a separate part of the Fade and it was also part of Feynriel's mind." She paused and glanced at Kameron. "This is a lot more complicated."

"And made no easier by dragging a non-mage along," Kameron added with a pointed look to where Hawke leaned with his back to the door.

Hawke only wagged his hand dismissively, but said nothing. The argument was settled, even Kameron seemed to understand it and let it go without pushing.

Kameron looked back at his book and flipped a page, studied it for a moment and then looked up just as Merrill straightened up. Something unspoken passed between them and Merrill said, "I'll need your blood for the rest."

There was nothing Anders could do to stop a flinch. Instant, instinctive revulsion formed a lump in his throat and for a moment all he could think of was that he needed to _get away _from this. He couldn't let them do it!

But he had agreed, he had accepted it as a challenge and backing out now would be a loss on all counts. Hawke wouldn't force him, no matter what he said, but it would drive Hawke away, which was far worse. So he held still as Merrill picked up a small glass bowl and a ceremonial knife — both from Kameron's chest — and came over to him.

"It'll not be a lot," she explained. "Just enough to paint the glyphs. But we'll need a little more for the bowl later."

Anders gave her a frown, but didn't resist as she made a small cut on his arm and let the drops fall into the glass. It looked too thick, this blood of his, too dark and it smelled all wrong. The taint, freed from his veins. Would that affect the magic? Make it stronger in the same way it gave Wardens a physical edge — right until it killed them?

Merrill used separate glasses for each of them and painted three glyphs on the ground just outside the chalk figures. In the end, she emptied the rest of the blood into the small bowl in the middle.

"Why doesn't the blood clot?" Anders asked.

"Enchantment on the bowls," Kameron replied, looking up. "Blood is most powerful when it's still connected to its living host. As would be the case for a sacrifice spread out on a Tevinter altar and as is the case for a blood mage drawing from his own blood."

The bait was so deliberate, Anders barely struggled with his instinctive revulsion. He only looked back blankly at his former commander and wondered, somewhat idly, if Kameron would shy away from using sacrifices. When Anders made no other response, Kameron returned his attention to his book.

During the short exchange, Merrill had began tying twine to edge of the middle bowl, letting one end of it fall into the blood and than drawing the string taut as she pinned it to the blood glyphs. She adjusted the twine to make sure it passed through the lyrium on it's way down, then stepped back to regard her work.

As the blood soaked into the twine, it slowly climbed through the lyrium and down to the glyphs, Anders began to feel the power they were calling for the first time. Not just the low, hymn of the lyrium itself and not the syrupy corruption of the blood magic, but something new that combined the two. Even as he watched, power began to seep into the stone of the floor through the glyphs and reverberate there.

Kameron closed the tome with a loud thud and got up from the crate.

"We should wait until the others return," he said. "We'll all be under, someone needs to stand watch."

Merrill picked up the small knife she had used to cut them earlier. "But we can start right-away," she said. "I know what you want me to do, but I can't construct it on my own. They are your memories."

Anders frowned, but chewed on his lower lip rather than ask. He had his own suspicions of what Kameron planned to do, of what memories he meant to use in this version of the Fade. It would still be futile, but Anders was also a mage and he understood that Kameron and Merrill had committed to an exceptional undertaking, worthy of respect at least, despite its vileness.

The magic had fixed the chalk glyphs, so they didn't smudge when Merrill stepped into their circle and stood before the bowl. Kameron came to join her, facing her across the bowls and the lyrium glow. It tinted the blade in a frosty blue as she wielded it, cutting into both her palms and than Kameron's to let the blood flow in stark, over-expressed contrast. A few drops slid down their arms and soaked their sleeves, before they joined hands, fingers laced with each other, and the blood dripped slowly into the bowl.

Tension wrapped both mages, pulled so tight it made their bodies shake and shiver. Merrill shifted a little, pulled her grip harder around Kameron's fingers until her knuckles turned white even in the cold light of the lyrium and the flickering of flames.

_"Everyone is created free," _Hawke whispered in his ear from the side and Anders would have jumped with the shock and closeness of him, but Hawke held him firmly in place, caught between him and the wall. _"And remains free," _Hawke continued inexorably. _"Though they be born in chains."_

The first words of Anders' manifesto, echoed back at him like a seduction. Hawke's teeth cut along the side of his jaw in the mockery of a kiss. Instinct made Anders twitch to the side, into the resistance of the wall. It was just enough room for him to turn and meet Hawke's gaze.

"What…?" Anders began and it came out in a dry croak.

"Word of four letters," Hawke chuckled. Not only didn't he let go, he crowded Anders further back, around the corner and behind a free-standing rack of wine barrels, where they would be — just narrowly — out of sight from the rest of the room.

There was a sense of black disgust throbbing away at the back of Anders' head. Justice had never liked Hawke at all, had hated that other power over him that Hawke represented. Hawke had been the way _out, _the distraction that could shatter all other plans and that was why Hawke had to be made an accomplice, broken down into his very components until he would serve the greater good whether he wanted to or not.

All of Justice's dominance notwithstanding, Anders felt himself melt into Hawke's arms the moment the deeper shadows embraced them. Just the sense of him, the taste and texture… Anders had forgotten how distant they had been, how far apart Hawke had been holding him. Pain and hurt and love, all intermingled until they could no longer be separated like an allegory of Anders' state of mind.

He wrapped his arms around Hawke's waist, fingers cramping into the fine fabric of his shirt, falling into the kiss like a starving man, ready to devour whatever he could sink his teeth into. He wanted Hawke, as much as on the first day they had met, through all the darkness of their separate and combined fates. But he couldn't hold on to it, or him, and the lust bled away into bleak hopelessness.

Panting, Anders slipped away from Hawke, let himself fall into the wall and be crushed as Hawke followed the movement, pinning him with the full weight of his body. Anders pressed his head into the nape of Hawke's neck. He desperately wanted to cry, but the tears never came.

Hawke held him anyway, as if the tears were falling freely.

"I believed you, you know," Hawke said. He sounded calmer than before, but he hadn't taken back the seduction. "About mages and freedom. My father would have agreed. If he hadn't had a family, I always thought he would have gone out in a blaze of glory. Love held him back. It saved him, if you want to be so dramatic."

Anders shivered, he couldn't help himself. With some effort, he lifted his head away from Hawke, let it fall back to wall and meet Hawke's gaze in the twilight.

"I'm sorry," Anders said. He had said it so often, he was no longer sure if the words had any meaning left at all or if he had worn them out, inadequate as they had been from the start.

Hawke laughed with the humour all turned inward. "I'm sorry, too," he said. "I couldn't save you with love and I couldn't save with friendship, like my mother did for my father. You are right, I never asked what you wanted. And I wouldn't have listened to the answer, either."

Anders was acutely aware of how close Hawke still was, the heat of his skin burning through his clothes and the sheer physicality of his presence.

Hawke said, "Ask me."

So many things, these two words could mean and yet, Anders could think of only one thing to say.

"Do we still have a future together?"

Hawke cupped his face with one hand and brushed his thumb over his lips. "Yes," he whispered.

* * *

A man stumbled through the unhinged door and out into the street. He caught on his own momentum and flailed his arms to regain his balance. Rays of sunset glinted through the green glass of the broken bottle he held. He charged back inside with an outraged yell.

The small crowd had been gathering outside the _Mermaid's Bust _since the brawl started. A few onlookers had since began to join in the fun, but for most it seemed more of a vaguely entertaining diversion on the way to — or from — their own business. They were dispersing sluggishly ahead of a patrol of city guards, making their way for the disturbance with the mien of people who had had to break up several brawls just like this already and would be breaking up several more before their shift ended. They weren't in any particular hurry to get there.

The brawl was already on the decline when Fenris pushed through the people and stepped over wooden debris left by broken furniture and splinters from the door. Stopping in the door to survey the room, he paid little attention to the majority of participants in the brawl and their state of consciousness.

Off to the side, Zevran had just extended an arm to help a tall man back to his feet. The assassin gave a quick glance over his shoulder when Fenris' appearance briefly darkened the room. He arched a brow when he saw the other elf. He hauled the other up and the tall man regained his feet from the shards of a table. He gave Zevran a hard slap on the back in thanks, squared his shoulders and straightened an odd eyepatch contraption back into place.

On the other end of the room, Isabela sat cross-legged on a table tipping back a bottle and taking several deep gulps. Putting the bottle down revealed a rapidly swelling eye and several bruises and cuts on her bare arms and legs, though according to the pleased expression on her face, no serious damage had been done.

She lifted the bottle in greeting.

"Is that really you or have I hurt my head?" she asked.

Fenris settled one shoulder on the doorway so he could keep an eye on the guards down the road.

"We should not remain here," Fenris observed.

Isabela looked away from him to Zevran and the other man. She jumped from the table, still waving around with the bottle as if it somehow gave her authority. She pointed it at the tall man at Zevran's side.

"That's Captain Aed, still handy in a fight I see," she said. "Except for that last blunder. What _were_ you thinking?"

Aed shrugged and grinned. "Got distracted. I like the company you keep."

Isabela laughed knowingly. She sauntered towards Fenris, all swaying hips and bloodied lips, grinning like a cat. "Well, Fenris," she cooed. "That's a coincidence, isn't it? One of those that never happen."

It took Fenris a moment to answer, "I… was looking for you."

Isabela's grin spread, linking arms with him, she stuck her head outside and stared down the road, then pulled back inside. "We should be going," she declared.

"As I was saying," Fenris said.

Aed waved them off. "You go your way, I go mine. Meet me on the _Fury _tomorrow and we'll get things settled."

Isabela didn't let go of Fenris as they left the _Mermaid's Bust, _leaning in closer as they went and pulling in Zevran on her other side once the streets were broad enough for it.

"I'm glad to see you've changed your mind," Zevran said.

"I knew he would," Isabela remarked.

"I didn't," Fenris finished and eyed her from the side.

"I would have come looking for you, if you hadn't found us first," Isabela said. "We are almost like _family, _the only one I've ever had."

Fenris was silent for a long minute. "Hawke said much the same thing."

"He isn't _always _wrong, you know."

Fenris let that observation hang in the air without further comment.

It was Zevran who put the finger in the wound. Fenris knew Zevran was not an ally or a friend, Zevran was a partisan and he had picked his side long ago. "Have you, perhaps, worked out your problems with magic in such a short time? Or do you plan to debate principle before and after every spell?"

Fenris growled, but before he could answer, Isabela cut in. "Don't make him regret his choice already. Did you even hear what I said? I called you my family, that's a very profound revelation. I'm going all mushy inside!"

Fenris made a noncommittal grunt, staring on the ground under his feet as he walked. "I'm going to talk to Hawke," he said. "I was angry when I left, not thinking clearly." He lifted his head. "And I couldn't take being locked up with these mages any longer. But that's changing now and I owe Hawke. I shouldn't have walked out like that."

He looked to the side and caught Zevran's gaze past Isabela. "That doesn't mean I agree."

"My friend, you should make up your mind," Zevran said earnestly.

"I have," Fenris insisted, though he wasn't entirely sure he believed that. He had been wrong before, he knew as much, abandoning a friend like that, even if his reasons would have been sufficient justification. He was less certain for how long he could stay with them, or whether it even would make sense for him to do so. He had taken a roundabout way just to get back to where he started without finding any answers in between. But for now, this was the place where he belonged.

* * *

Cassandra had been forced to draft Templars into her service. She had not enough Seekers she could spare for a raid on baroness Ophélie's house. It was too large and had too many servants and guards of its own, not to mention the deadly fugitives suspected within.

Keeping the Templars in check all day had been a task all its own, stemming their fervour to charge in the moment she put her plan to the Knight-Commander. Thankfully, he had seen the wisdom of her plan, giving her both the manpower and the authority to do with it as she pleased. She suspected it was partly due to the Knight-Commander's unwillingness to pick a fight with her, even a verbal one.

As the sun set and Ophélie's doorman closed the gate for the night, Cassandra finally gave the order to get ready. She would not order the attack before the darkness was much thicker than now. The servants would be asleep by than, Hawke and Ophélie otherwise occupied and perhaps even Hawke's companions had let their guard down.

This was not going to be an easy fight. Leliana's involvement alone would have been prove of it, made worse by Hawke's own reputation and the misfits of his company. And then, there was the Warden to consider, too, an unknown factor if ever there had been one.

No, this was not going to be an easy fight at all.

* * *

**References**

"everyone is created free, and is free, though he be born in chains." — adapted from Words of Faith, Friedrich Schiller

"word of four letters." — after a quib made in Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm inordinately proud of Cross-Eyed Aed's name and I ended up fangirling on him a lot more than I expectedand I had to cut large swathes of his scenes.

**Note:** Next update will be delayed. I apologise.


	8. All Happy Families

**Chapter 8: All Happy Families**

* * *

Once again, Fenris was being denied sight of Hawke's face as they spoke. But it was where some strange tidal wave had put them while Fenris was still trying to comprehend the hug Merrill had greeted him with and he had, for an instant, been hard pressed to summon his distaste for her choices, washed away by her sincerity, it seemed. Grim-faced, Anders was bent over a tome with Kameron and after releasing him, Merrill went to join them.

Isabela had jostled him a little, putting him in the place he was, with his back resting on a rack of wine barrels, positioned so to mirror Hawke, leaning on the same rack, just around the corner but invisible all the same as the silence stretched and gained weight despite the quite murmuring of the others around the room.

Thinking back, Fenris only now realised how tense Hawke had been in all the months since leaving Kirkwall, his charm straining to the breaking point by the sheer necessity of carrying them all forward.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Fenris began, for something to say, unsure whether Hawke was waiting for Fenris to break the silence, whether it was out of amusement or out of apprehension.

"I've settled on 'honoured'," Hawke said with humour that could have been all real, though not in this place and this time.

"Not _that_," Fenris heard a growl in his own voice and he hadn't quite wanted to put it there. "You said you envied me for not having those memories."

"Ah, that. Don't hold it against me, it had been a long night even before you showed up."

Fenris cleared his throat. Hawke was too good at derailing any discussion if it suited him to do so. It had never been comfortable to be on the receiving end of it, but this was too important to just let slide, but the words wouldn't quite come. It was moments like this when her remembered how much of his life had been taken away, of experience and knowledge about what it meant to live in the world. Never mind how much of it would have been an experience of _slavery, _not in the end.

"I won't, then," Fenris finally said, conceding defeat on the subject. He knew what Hawke had meant and perhaps he should still appreciate how willing Hawke had been to show his vulnerability, even for a moment.

Fenris took a breath. "I still don't like any of this, but when I was planning my next move, I didn't really know where to go. You said we were family and while I never had any family worth remembering, I know at least that families should go through thick and thin together."

"What's left our families, anyway," Hawke said mildly.

"Then we will be two remnants," Fenris said, not quite a conclusion, but not a resolution either. "I owe you more than I realised. Deserting you as I have was wrong, but I make no apologies for my opinions. I know the truth of mages."

Hawke made no answer at all, only the weight of his silence as it clawed around the corners like claws.

Fenris added, "But I think you know it, too."

He never expected an answer, much less the answer he got.

Hawke said, "Even if I did, we don't all make the same choices. Otherwise they wouldn't _be _choices, would they?"

A slight vibration went through the shelf at his back, revealing that Hawke had shook himself free of it and indeed, he stepped into Fenris' field of vision with his typical nonchalance, notwithstanding how stripped raw Hawke's very self must have become in the times just past.

For a moment, it looked as if Hawke would gave him a companionable pat on the shoulder — and for a moment, Fenris wondered what he would make of such a gesture — but then Hawke instead only flashed him a quick smile, brilliant and genuine and _gone again _into the twilight.

Isabela, trading flirts with Zevran, caught Fenris' gaze and gave him a wink.

* * *

Ophélie had been vast asleep when her townhouse was taken with frightening efficiency. By the time two Templars dragged her from her bed, her guards had already been tied up and the rest of the staff herded into the courtyard.

Still drowsy from sleep and light-headed from the shock, Ophélie was still rendered speechless when a Templar pushed her own dressing gown into her hands. She put it on mechanically, what else would she have done? The Templar gripped her shoulder and pushed her to sit in an armchair by the fireplace. The embers there glowed in dull, midnight weakness, soon to be extinguished and for some reason, Ophélie watched it for the longest time as if mesmerised.

She was a peer of Orlais, a noblewoman and though her standing might be quite low in the hierarchy — especially in Val Royeaux itself — but such treatment was still inconceivable. In her experience, such things happened in playwrights' fantasies or, at best, in gossip shared in ballrooms over sparkling wine. It was more than thrilling, to have the mysterious assassin in her life and all the adventure he had brought with him. Still, it wasn't supposed to touch her, or threaten her. It wasn't supposed to come in the dark like this, transforming the velveteen nights of her imagination in something harsh and unyielding.

The Templar had shifted out of her line of sight, stood somewhere off to the side and behind her. She felt his bulky presence, looming in the darkness. She heard noise from the other rooms as the Templars searched them: scrape of wood on metal on wood from cupboards and dressers and other furniture, dull thuds of books being ripped from shelves, sometimes a quick discussion would take place, calls back and forth for coordination. Overall, however, they were surprisingly quiet. It occurred to Ophélie that her neighbours probably wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss, no great conflagration at all. Just a raid, in the middle of the night, in the most cultured country in Thedas.

Her thoughts spun wildly in her head, still chased by the remnants of sleep and the insistence that _this _here could be nothing but a nightmare and it would soon enough release her from its grip. Except it didn't and her mind began to clear ever so slowly, almost as if it was feeding from the meagre energy of the dead flames in the fireplace.

Ophélie realised she was shivering and she pulled the gown closer around her. And the movement seemed to break the spell, shock her fully awake from one moment to the next and only then did she begin to feel afraid. Because there were so very few reasons for the Templars to come to her as they had and no amount of affronted nobility would dissuade them. What did happen to the accomplices of apostates? Even those wellborn and wealthy, Templar authority on the matter was nearly absolute, after all.

Quiet click of boots on the polished floor. Ophélie turned her head to watch a woman peel herself from the shadows that spilled from the darkened hallway into the room. She walked with intense deliberation, armoured like the others, but her head bare of any helmet and revealing the elegant cast of her serious face. The mark on her armour was different, not the Templars' sword and flames, though she obviously was the one in charge.

Not knowing what else to do, she tried for affronted aristocracy anyway. "How _dare _you intrude in my house like this?"

The woman crossed the room with the same measured strides only to stop a few steps away from Ophélie and regard her thoughtfully for a long moment.

Ophélie continued, "I demand an apology! I _demand _you release me and my people _at once!"_

"I am to believe you are innocent?" the woman asked and her deep voice cut through the act like a slap in the face.

"Innocent?" Ophélie echoed incredulously. "I don't even know what you accuse me off! Of course I'm innocent!"

A curt shake of the head. "Your servants tell me you have a Fereldan in your employment?"

"So?"

"Only a few days ago he arrived her with an odd entourage, humans and elves both. Do you know who they were?"

Ophélie managed to bear the woman's gaze for barely a heartbeat before it's weight seemed to press her further into the plush of the armchair.

"Friends of Master Ballagh," she said and pushed her chin forward defiantly. "The stewart told me we were understaffed, they were to be new servants."

Again, the woman shook her head and an edge came into her voice. "Where are they now?"

Avoiding the woman's piercing gaze, Ophélie pushed her chin forward defiantly. "It's the middle of the night, in their beds, before they were dragged from them by you and your _brutes."_

A beat. Then the woman rushed forward like a striking serpent, put both hands on the armchair on either side of Ophélie, leaned in until their faces were level with each other. "You have been harbouring an apostate and several fugitive criminals from Kirkwall. You are an accomplice to their crimes and you will be punished accordingly."

The woman drew back a fraction, just enough for Ophélie to dare a breath.

"Or you help me. With no holding back." The woman pushed herself free from the armchair, stepped away and crossed her arms over her chest, stared down at Ophélie. "I ask again: Where are they now?"

* * *

Leliana kept her head down on her lengthy walk through the city and down to the waterfront. Not since running from Marjolaine had she felt this _stalked. _Fragments of thoughts chased each other in her head, equally unwelcome and distracting as the smattering of people in the streets so late at night. It wasn't a crowd by any sense of the word, not dense enough to get lost in, but more than enough people who would be able to recognise a pretty, red-headed woman with too-expensive clothes and the hunted look in her eyes.

If Cassandra had other sources…

If Kameron hadn't understood her message…

If she had been wrong all along… what then?

Cassandra would take Ophélie's townhouse, the girl the sacrificial lamb for the cause — whatever that might be. Finding nothing but the trait gone cold of Hawke's presence at Ophélie's house, who knew what Cassandra would do? She was a Seeker, half a legend in her own right, every shred of her reputation earned. Such a woman would not be so easily deterred from her goal. Leliana had tried telling her there was no danger, but she couldn't blame Cassandra for not taking her word for it.

Leliana stopped on a corner and lifted her head to take a longer look at her surrounding, nominally to orient herself, but also so she could scan the street behind her for anyone suspicious. She bent down and fiddled with her boot, covering her pause.

She spotted no one who had no business here, only herself as it were: Betraying faith and Chantry for a friendship that had sat on the shelf, unused for almost a decade and a man whom she had met three times to exchange a handful of mostly meaningless words.

Yet, she could barely imagine not helping them. Not in any true sense. She could see the choice right in front of her, how hard it was, the treason she would commit, but for all her imagination she could not picture it. She could not see herself in the Divine's office as she told her of Kameron and Hawke. She could not summon the words even to her mind of how she would have told Cassandra about _L'auberge de la Coraline_. She could have revealed Hawke as soon as she learned of him, before Kameron had even been there and perhaps she would have been spared. But the pictures in her mind were pale and ill-defined, forever the paths she would not take.

How easily Kameron had been able to predict her motivation irked her ever so slightly, an irritation that seemed to increase with every step she took.

What if Kameron was not the hero in this story? Hawke not the tragic-romantic lover and Anders not the idealistic, though misguided, martyr of a just cause?

Someone nearly bumped in Leliana and she stopped, sidestepped nimbly and watched as the drunken man mumbled an apology and shuffled his way down the street. She eyed him, suspicious beyond all reason, but the man did nothing to prove her right. Her purse was still in its place and no incriminating evidence — of whatever nature — had been left there, either.

Turning back, she stood under the sign of _L'auberge de la Coraline_, its writing lit by a flickering lamp, painting the letters in obscenely bright red.

Leliana laughed to herself, despite or because of the ridiculousness of the situation. All her fretting, all her worry, _all of it, _and here she was anyway, the meaningless of the fight with her conscience revealed for all to see.

Thankfully, there was no one else on the street right then to marvel at the strange woman and remember her, for later, when the Templars came, armed with questions and cold steel.

* * *

Isabela was keeping watch of the taproom from a corner of the bar, making a good show of a depressed sailor nursing her beer. She was on her feet quick as a panther the moment Leliana appeared in the doorway and it was an amazing display of skill to watch. For all her obvious charms, Isabela knew perfectly well how _not _to draw attention when such a thing didn't suit her. The bartender glanced up as she passed and it was obvious he forgot about her the moment his attention was caught by the waitress. The men playing dice on the table in a corner didn't even look up, though Isabela was close enough to be groped by any of them. The merchant, in obvious negotiations, noticed nothing about it at all.

"Our last lost lamb!" Isabela greeted her and slung an arm around her shoulder.

"Last?" Leliana asked.

Isabela sniggered. "My lost faith in a happy ending has been reviving these last few days." She gently pulled Leliana around and steered her to the back of the room. "Ready for the finale?"

Isabela led her down the stone steps into the sprawling basement of the Coraline, through cold-rooms for fresh meat and vegetables into rooms staked floor to ceiling with casks of wine and beer, barrels of salted fish. Until they reached an almost empty room on the far end of a dimly lit corridor.

"Leliana!" Zevran's accented voice greeted her as Isabela pushed her through the narrow door ahead of her. Before Leliana had time to take in any more of the scene in the room, she was pulled into a hearty embrace by Zevran and for that moment, the joy of the reunion drove away all other concerns. She squeezed him right back then released him, pushing him to arms' length to look in his face. Of all the companions during the Blight, she and Zevran had had a special accord, an acceptance between people of similar shady trades and secretive pasts. He looked older, hard-won experience frosting his cheerful features like a muffling veil. Only the sparkle in his eyes was the same. She thought he would be seeing much the same in her own face.

Past Zevran, she spotted Hawke sitting on a crate across the room. Leliana couldn't read Hawke's face across the distance and through the corpselight glow of the blood-and-lyrium ritual laid out on the floor between them. But even without it, she didn't know Hawke well enough to pass any form of judgement on his state of mind. He seemed peaceful, or at least contemplative, if such a thing was even possible.

He greeted her with a slight smile and a nod.

Fenris stood by the door, tall and imposing, but hidden in shadow. Anyone _uninvited _entering this room would be finding Fenris quite the obstacle to their progress. He had his arms crossed over his chest, eyes focused on the ritual with slight, subconscious distaste curling one corner of his mouth.

Strands of tension filled the room like an unseen web, tangling loyalties and distrust, hate and love and an ache which could as easily be hope as it could be hopelessness. Leliana had some idea of the people collected in this room and she entertained a brief moment picturing Cassandra trying to take them. She wasn't quite sure what she thought about the slaughter that would follow, had she truly decided to sell them out. Because despite the uncertainty of the alliances here, against a clear foe, they would stand together. This was her side, after all, where she belonged. For bad or worse. Her doubts would return in time, but at least she would have some answers for them then.

"I'm glad you came," Kameron said as he left his place and sauntered over to her. "Thank you for the warning."

"Only this once," she said, though the ice was faint in her voice and the lie apparent to both of them. Kameron had the decency not to press her on the topic, but he didn't need to.

He turned away from her and the apprehension in the room focused on him. He caught Merrill's gaze, who nodded and then Hawke's, who slipped easily to his feet.

"Let's get this show on the road," Hawke said, clapping his hands. "Isabela, I want you back in the taproom, keeping an eye on surprise visitors and Fenris out in the hallway just in case. Zevran…"

"I'd prefer Zevran to stay in here," Kameron interjected and Hawke nodded again.

"What about me?" Leliana asked. Hawke watched her for a long moment and she couldn't quite shake the impression he was contemplating all the different ways to kill or at least incapacitate her.

"Stay, or join Fenris or try and keep Isabela from getting so drunk and so laid she forgets about watching out for Templars. Shouldn't be that hard, she's a good multi-tasker."

Leliana hesitated for a long minute. Nothing _should _go wrong, at least not regarding the Templars or Cassandra and the Seekers. There were no trails leading to this inn, at least none that could be smelt out this quickly. There was another danger, however, one far closer than an intrusion from outside. There would be three mages in the Fade, two of them blood mages and one already possessed. If something went wrong at all, the true danger lay was in this room.

"I'd rather stay," she said and something must have given her away, because Kameron gave a quick, savage grin and said, "Strike true."

* * *

For a mage, the intricate workings of the ritual would paint itself in a glowing manifestation of magic through the empty air of the room. In the perception of a mage, the power called would seem to make the floor shiver and the walls tremble. A mage's senses would stand on edge, like any man's facing an oncoming thunderstorm, only a thousandfold stronger, beating through flesh and bone like a pulse or a tide pulling everything with it.

For someone who was not a mage, the ritual appeared quite mundane, unspectacular and anticlimactic. Very little actually happened where it would be seen by the naked eye. Leliana settled herself in the shadows of corner, close to the door where Fenris had been when she had come in. A part of her was surprised to find Zevran actually moved further away from the door and instead picked to sit on the crate where the tome still lay in the imitation of relaxation that hid his readiness to spring.

Hawke, Anders and Kameron lay down on the chalk marks and Merrill let a dribble of their combined blood fall on their foreheads and then drew the line of crimson back to the bowl at the centre. Anders locked up, his skin flickered blue for a second and then he slumped and paled, seemed to fade to the point where Leliana expected him to become transparent. In the lyrium glow the three looked like corpses and Merrill's elven face became grim and alien. The confidence with which she went through her motions made her seem a necromancer who thought of herself as an artist even as she cut her subjects to pieces.

Merrill settled herself at the other side of the bowl, presiding over the three lifeless forms. She held herself motionless there, gathering the strands of power to herself, impressing her will on them. She reached forward, gripped the bowl with both hands and, taking care not to sever the soaked strings, dipped the bowl of blood over, spilling it past the lyrium and to the floor. The blood spread in a puddle around Merrill's kneeling form, too much of it and far too bright for comfort.

* * *

The horizon in the Fade had the look of fake distance to it. Stage props placed at sufficiently far away to fool a rural audience, but with no more actual depth than a painting of garish colours and conventional motive. Likewise, the tint of the sky was somehow subtly _wrong, _not quite as blue as it should be, edging into purple and yellow at the edges, where the artist had not smudged the colours as carefully as at the centre.

Dark earth compressed under their boots, pebbles thrown on a village path to give some stability against the mud a recent rain had left in it's wake, but that, too, left the aftertaste of imitation, a roast made of cardboard and served on expensive porcelain and neither host nor guests were willing to admit it didn't much work as a proper meal.

The air was perfectly still, playing at odds with the dusty-green shrubbery lining the path that allowed its leaves to sway gently in a wind that wasn't there.

"You'll notice there is no scent," Kameron said as he turned in a circle, arms spread out as if he were indeed up on a stage and speaking the prologue to a rapt audience of open-mouthed yokels. "That's what gives it away, usually."

Hawke let his gaze wander around the surrounding countryside, than tilted his head back to watch the clouds as they travelled across the artificial sky in three different directions at once. "And the clouds look like dragons and unicorns," he added.

Kameron followed the direction of his gaze and actually frowned. "I've never seen that," he finally said, then shrugged. "I read a book, once, as a child. It had a picture in it not unlike this."

Before Hawke had a chance to chortle, Kameron continued, "And that's actually the most important thing about the Fade. It is not stable. It picks on our thoughts, conscious or not and it changes even as we try to balance our understanding of it."

He turned on the path. "Vigil's Keep is that way," he said and started walking.

Hawke lingered for a moment longer, watching as the wind ripped the unicorns apart and repainted them as cockatrices, sending them to war against mermaids. A gap opened in their front lines, seemed to tear right through the canopy of sky and horizon to reveal the soaring spires of the Black City, impossibly far away and at the same time, close enough to come hissing down like an executioner's axe.

He pushed the heel of one boot into the soft ground, then watched the imprint as if waiting for something strange to happen to it. When nothing happened, he gave a slight shrug and strode after Kameron without hurry.

"I'm not a Dreamer," Kameron said when Hawke fell into step beside him. "I cannot shape the Fade as they do, but any mage with sufficient determination and power can bent it to his will. All of this," another sweeping gesture with one hand, "is currently held in place by Merrill's mind alone and fuelled by both lyrium and blood. A Dreamer would see the stitches where we've put the pieces together."

"It's certainly a nice location for a leisurely stroll," Hawke remarked with a casualness that went barely skin deep.

"It's for your comfort," Kameron said. "And mine. It takes a while for the body to adjust, you need to trust your instincts more in this place, because it's malleable to who you perceive yourself to be."

He glanced to the side. "You look different here. Not like the fake courtier you pretend to be in Val Royeaux and not like the fugitive down on his luck you were when you got there."

If it was the moment for Hawke to realise this very fact, he gave no outward sign. The black armour of his Kirkwall days fit him as perfectly as it had ever done, gleaming leather, flexible enough to follow his every move, yet with the toughness to withstand any but the most dedicated sword-stroke. Shoulder-guards spiked with silverite and the torn straps of red cloth that wrapped around the scabbards of his shivs — Finesse, Zevran's gift, from a lifetime ago.

"Yes, and you've got the loveliest golden locks I've ever seen on any girl," Hawke remarked. "Makes me want to braid your hair."

A quick smile ghosted over Kameron's face. "I've only recently cut it, my subconsciousness seems to be a bit slow on the uptake."

For all that, his hair was tied back from his face in a queue that looked as if it had been loosened by a long day of hiking or fighting. His armour looked very much like the one out there in the real world, though less worn and dented, the way it would if he had picked it up from the armorer only a few days ago. The sword Vigilance was strapped to his back, unmitigated by the splendour of it sheath. Small wafts of colds were crawling all along its length, far more so than they would outside the Fade.

They walked for a while in silence and though the path before them made a good imitation of solid authenticity, it had a habit of seeming to shift and writhe ahead and behind them like a living thing, like walking on a pinned, but still living serpent that sought to shake them off.

"Vigil's Keep," Hawke began. "What's there that makes it so important?"

"It's where Anders became a Warden, where he met Justice and I met them both."

"For a teary-eyed nostalgia trip?" Hawke asked and the edge of sarcasm cut right through the veneer he had affected before. "You really have no idea what's been going on with either of them in the past years, haven't you?"

"What else is there to do? Our past anchors us. We are nothing without our past." A long pause, stretching until it would become uncomfortable, had this been a normal place, or these been normal man.

Kameron said, "Why do you still distrust me?"

"That's actually a misconception you've been having from the start," Hawke said, back to the lightness of before, but with a sharpness in his voice, lend to it by the stillness of the air. "I don't distrust you. It's just I have no reason to _trust_ you. Different thing, more or less. Different enough, anyway. Crazy mages aren't exactly in short supply where I come from."

This time, it was Hawke who didn't give his companion time for a reply. "I think Fenris doesn't have it half wrong about you. Sinister intent or lack thereof, trust on no evidence makes for a short life, although probably of the 'ignorance is bliss' variety. I'm not an idiot. At least, I like to think I'm not."

Kameron stared at the ground under his feet for a while, pensive. Quietly, he said, "While you were travelling with Zevran, did he tell you about our trip to Sharpe's Town?"

"Not that I recall, but all the tales of assassination and moresomes rather blur into each other after a while. We've also had quite a few mentions of bondage, interestingly carved 'toys' and he's _really _into leather, but I somehow doubt you don't know that."

"The _smell _of leather, to be precise," Kameron laughed a little, but became serious immediately. "But no, it's not that kind of story. I thought he might have told you, but it's just as well."

The path before them fitted itself between pastures and small fields, farmhouses hidden by the haze of distance and the cutouts of cows chewing their food and watching them with the same amount of disinterest a real cow would have afforded them. The Fade remembered to offer the sound of two birds, singing to each other from the wayside hedge to a pile of firewood by a stable.

"Sharpe's Town is a fishing village on the Coastlands, remarkable only in that it sits on the border between Highever and Amaranthine. We had a lot of rebuilding to do after the Blight and Arl Howe had ravaged both arlings to the best of his ability. It must have been during this effort of bringing order back that Arl Cousland found a list of 'notable citizens' and passed it on to me."

Hawke narrowed his eyes, from the errant ray of sunlight striking his eyes or something else entirely. He didn't look at Kameron and the Warden continued, a thin strand of humour lacing his voice. "I have _no _idea how she got on that list, but I suppose chance can work in the oddest ways. I had not thought of looking for my mother after the Blight. The Tower was very good at teaching us how our past lives mattered no longer, it didn't even occur to me to…" And fell silent as if he had been slapped.

On either side of them and ahead, the houses grew denser and taller, and the bulk of Vigil's Keep began to peel itself from the undefined Fade, pretending to have always been there. When Kameron picked up the narrative again, his voice was perfectly steady.

"I had three siblings of who I knew, all of them mages and all of them dead. Zevran was with me when I journeyed to Sharpe's Town. It's a nondescript cluster of small houses and salt crusted moorings. It smells of fish and the sea there, no matter where you go. The people didn't trust two-armed strangers, but they pointed us to the house and made warding signs against evil behind our backs."

A larger rock churned under Hawke's boot. "My mother always cited Revka for why she wouldn't risk losing children to the Circle. But I'm too old to expect a happy reunion. If there were one, I don't think you'd be telling me."

"She was mad," Kameron said simply. "Her neighbours said she hadn't left the house for years, only took a few steps into the overgrown gardens at night to harvest some of the vegetables that still grew there. The house was large, stately once for that village. There were the mummified corpses of two children in the nursery and she was so _terrified _we would take them away. She must have killed them for fear the Templars would come again."

As if bypassing the intervening space, listening to the story and its ending, Vigil's Keep was suddenly right in front of them, the open gate and the wide courtyard beyond. It was deserted of people, but with the warmth of them still lingering somehow, as if they would be back in a moment and the silence would be breached by the sound of their everyday lives, as, no doubt, the real Vigil would hold even today.

"What, do we bond now?" Hawke inquired, coming to halt and standing relaxed.

Kameron chuckled. "What I meant to say is this: You — and Bethany — are the only family I have left."

"What about Zevran?"

"Zevran isn't my family. He's my life."

"When you said there is nothing a demon could tempt you with, you were lying, weren't you?"

Another chuckle. "A demon will always find something to tempt us with."

He took another step forward, turned to face Hawke. The Fade exaggerated the contrast of his pale face and the red tattoos there, left odd reflections in his eyes that shouldn't be there. Abruptly, the wind picked up and though the ground had been damp on the way, now the air filled with dust, dry and abrasive, dust-devils dancing behind them and a shiver seemed to roll through the landscape.

Hawke made a dismissive gesture with his hand, the mannerism underscoring the similarities of them, even as he discarded them. He said, "Frankly, I've heard better storytellers than you at work and besides, it wasn't necessary. There is nothing about your motivation that I've somehow managed to misunderstand. The opposite, in fact."

As if sensing Kameron phrasing the retort, Hawke added, "Let's go for the cheap shot here, why don't we? If it were the other way around and I'd be in your shoes, saving your… well, your _life_, would you be taking your eyes off me even for a second?"

The thoughtful expression on Kameron's face remained, settled there like a scavenger intent on staying, perhaps from the memories he had indadvertedly called and the Fade, by his own words, would be responsive to such things.

Hawke tilted his head a little, fixed his gaze on something behind Kameron's shoulder and, almost by accident, Kameron mirrored the gesture.

The Warden said, "Something behind me?"

Hawke nodded mellowly, "Something behind you."

The both moved with dancers' accord, way from each other so as not to hinder each other's movement, with a twist and a half-turn so their stood angled, not quite back to back, but with all angles covered.

The Desire demon purred as she watched. Her appearance wasn't quite fixed, yet, wavering between the preference of both men, trying to arrange herself into a form that would be most appealing to the both of them only to find not enough common ground for just one shape. For all her effort, no demon could hide their true face in the Fade and the horns were there and the claws and the inhuman, wavering flames that served as her hair.

"I heard talk of _temptations," _she cooed. "And here I am, as called, as dreamed, as wanted. I am Frenzy. I love the tableau you created here." She moved her arm in an arch and the gesture drew her body into perfect, supple display. She took a step forward, then stopped, facing the obvious hostile demeanour of both men.

She laughed, deep in her throat. "My my, such ferocity you bring, such _willpower. _I am not the first to hear you tread the Fade, but the others want to watch you for longer, see what creatures you are before they would taste you. So tell me, what _tempts _you?"

"Roast-beef," Hawke said. "Still bloody, you know the kind where the animal hasn't realised it's dead, yet. I could never resist that."

Frenzy regarded him smugly. "Not your mother, then? Singing softly in the night? Not your father? Telling stories of wondrous adventures? Not your family, all safe and sound and at home?" Her voice slithered in quiet, melodious tones, wrapping fingers of mist around the senses.

A strain had put itself on Hawke's voice, betraying the effort it took to unclench his jaw and the hardening of muscle as it kept his casual expression in place. "Dead and gone, demon, and I'm too old to believe in easy answers."

"So quick to dismiss my offer. So caught in your own web. Do you realise how blind you are? All these opportunities you never see. I could show you, you know, how much more you could be."

In the Fade, normal rules did not apply. It takes an earthbound mind a while to get used to it, but Hawke had never been slow to understand new rules. It was a skill you needed when you built your life on breaking them. Faster than muscle and sinew would have carried him, he was on the demon, thrusting his hand along her scalp, tearing her head back and pulling her into an embrace, though hardly the kind she could have seen coming. Finesse seemed to jump into his hand on its own, as if he had called it like the demon, eager to put its blade into her throat.

Frenzy twitched in his grip, but then actually seemed to snuggle closer into his hold, though she was careful to keep her throat still and not slit it accidentally.

"Let's assume you have nothing I want," Hawke said, voice dropped to a whisper, harsher than her own had been but with some of its cadences.

"_Everyone," _she said, "wants something."

"Hawke," Kameron cut in. He released the hilt of Vigilance, which he had gripped in the expectation of a battle. "Desire demons love this sort of game. You can't seduce her into a surrender. Just slit her throat and be done with her."

"Before I lay your soul bare?" Frenzy inquired, still writhing sensually in Hawke's arms. "And he sees the true black depths of your lusts?"

"I'm all ears, as they say," Hawke began conversationally. "Then again…"

His grip turned to steel and Frenzy must have had a moment of warning, a premonition of intent and she struggled, long claws snapping for his arms and breaking their edge on his armour, an impotent attempt to protect herself when the game had eluded her grasp.

"… I'm on a schedule."

Finesse tore through her shimmering skin like butter and Frenzy flowed away like water, leaving nothing behind but the beating echo of her dying scream.

* * *

**Reference**

"all happy families" — (Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.) Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yeah, the inevitable Fade portion begins. Honestly, I'm not too fond of playing those quests, but let me tell you: They are a riot to write.

**Update notice:** Due to personal reasons, I don't get as much writing done as my last few faithful readers would deserve. Rest assured, it's going to be finished, even if it takes longer than I had planned.

As per usual, feedback is most welcome.


	9. La Farce Est Jouée

_**A very special thanks to The Allusive Man for beta-reading this chapter!**_

* * *

**Chapter 9: La Farce Est Jouée**

* * *

The emptiness of the courtyard of Vigil's Keep held no tranquility, rather the _absence _of bustle and activity left a tension that drove itself ever higher, ready to snap and tear through the air like a slave-master's whip. The sound of boots on cobbles came ever so slightly delayed as Hawke and Kameron made their way across the yard.

In reality, the open portcullis might be inviting, a sign of the Keep's share in the social and cultural life of the arling it guarded, but here the perspective was threatening in its way, a maw ready to snap closed the moment unwary prey dared to cross its threshold.

"The black truth of your deep lusts?" Hawke chuckled. "Or was it true depth of your black lusts?"

"It's not so complicated," Kameron replied unimpressed.

"I hope it's not so melodramatic, either," Hawke added, grinning.

The moment they stepped into the Keep proper, it was night. The late afternoon light that had flooded the courtyard and accompanied them thus far was gone without transition. The air cooled rapidly, scratching like a too-rough caress over skin. The leather and metal of armour creaked, acquiescing to an unspoken expectation from the mortal minds wearing both.

"Tell me about the Wardens," Hawke said and his voice held a rare, gentle note.

"Are you asking because of Bethany?"

"Because of Bethany, because of Anders, because of you, take your pick."

Kameron stopped in front of the wooden gate to the main hall. Firelight flickered invitingly through the gap at the floor, painting dancing shadows on the stone and they had the exact same shape as flames in a misunderstanding that equated firelight with darkness.

"I couldn't, actually. I have only met a handful of them, not enough to tell you _about Wardens. _I like to think of us as the last bastion of equality in the world, but I might be biased. Bethany could have done worse than the Wardens."

"What about the Taint?"

"We are none of us going to live forever."

Kameron turned back and began to put his weight against the heavy door, but before it had a chance to give, Hawke laid his hand on Kameron's shoulder. One could be forgiven to believe part of Hawke's reason was to see the instant, raw flinch in the Warden as proof the trust issues went both ways.

"Wait," Hawke said and took his hand away, quite deliberately as it seemed, took a half-step back in a concession. "Anything else I should know about this? What do I do?"

Kameron let go of the door, turned back to face Hawke and smiled ever so slightly. "_Now _you ask?"

"I could go for my most educated guess," Hawke offered.

"That _was _my idea, as it were. Trust your instincts. The trouble you get yourself into notwithstanding, your instincts _are_ good."

"Considering I also get _out_ of said trouble… yeah, you might be onto something there," Hawke shrugged. "Of course, it's only a question of time until _that _goes pear-shaped."

"Not today, though."

"No, not today."

#

The scene had never happened in this way. For one, the light was all wrong. It came from different angles, from above as if it were a bright day and yet the shadows lingered in the corners in the way of when the night has grown old. The great fire at the centre was burning only in three quarters of the hearth.

The Wardens who Kameron recruited during his days at Vigil's Keep were scattered about the room and while each individual moment must have taken place, they would not have done so in just one single night or day. An elf and a tall human occupied a corner, sitting on cushioned benches. She held herself oddly turned away from him even as she seemed to be listening to what he was saying, scribbling in a notebook resting in her lap. An amused glint lingered in his dark eyes as he talked, minimal gestures of hands to supplant his story, as if she were a deer he feared to frighten away.

A dwarf was not too far from them, wrapped in a layer of blankets and her face hidden behind an open book and other books were piled on both sides of her, ready to be devoured.

Quiet snoring came from the side, where a red-haired dwarf was sleeping huddled to a barrel, clutching an oversized mug close to his chest.

Hawke let Kameron precede him and let his gaze wander through the room, rest on the sleeping dwarf and the three further along the hall. There was something cosy about the scene, the perceived — though absent in actuality — warmth of the hearth's fire and the peace of the people assembled. You could be let to forget about the true fate of all Wardens, of the burden bestowed on them and the terrible price it would in the end demand of them.

While Kameron kept walking, with the casual confidence of one who found himself in a familiar place, Hawke stopped.

Right in front of the hearth, Anders was sleeping sprawled out on three chairs. At some point, he had had a blanket, but it had fallen away to gather on the floor under him, burying a cup under it. An oversized cat was curled up on his stomach and one of his hands was nestled in the fur, still absently stroking it.

Hawke stood and watched him and the Fade seemed to hold its breath around them, seemed to _draw _away from them in an unexpected show of piety, giving them a moment of quiet and peace and timelessness. The expression on Hawke's face was perfectly even, revealing nothing of his history and inner workings, nothing of his feelings and longings. The Fade might know, but refrained from snatching it from his mind and making it come true.

Insecurity, if such there was, never seeped into his movement as he started forward, crossing the open space to Anders. Something in step held the rhythm of inevitability, a path set before him and he could do nothing but follow only to stop again abruptly, just before he would be close enough to touch.

For some reason, he lifted his gaze away from Anders and found Kameron obscured through the fire of the hearth. The Warden stood facing the throne at the other end of the hall, facing the figure seated on the throne there.

Hawke flexed his hand, once, and walked away as if it was nothing. Circled the hearth and crossed to stand by Kameron's side and followed his gaze up the dais to the throne and to the figure there.

It was a man, or at least, it had once been. Now it was a rotting corpse, although one dressed in magnificent gilded armour with the Warden's griffon crest emblazoned on his chest. In contrast and complement, the sword leaning by his side was simple, a soldier's blade, made for fighting and not representation. Old and worn and more faithful than any hound could ever be.

Tiny tatters of loose skin fluttered along his cheek as the corpse snapped his head around at Hawke's approach, away from Kameron as if he was forgotten.

Only a part of his lips remained and the sudden, angry scowl that appeared was made gruesome by the expanse of uncovered teeth and the voice did not quite match, the words should not have been as clearly enunciated, when the lips were gone and the tongue, it turned out, was a bloated slap of greying meat.

"You!" the corpse greeted him. "You are the corrupter! You dragged him away from his path with your laughter and your lies." He looked back at Kameron. "I do not understand the farce you intend to play."

"You are Justice?" Hawke asked evenly.

"I am Justice," he said and seemed to calm, though he kept a sparkling eye on Hawke.

"I never lied to Anders," Hawke said. "And without laughter, you would have lost him long ago."

"You did not?" Justice asked, his head snapped back suddenly, the jerky movements of someone whose muscles were too far degraded to allow for subtlety. It would have made sense, such a shortcoming, but it had failed to hamper his speech, but this was the Fade and its rules were arbitrary.

"And yet you did spend nights with Isabela and one with Fenris."

"Normally, I would ask you to grow a sense of proportion, but if you could do that, I don't think we would be here."

"Do you think I did not smell the ambition in you?" Justice demanded. "The _desire _to possess him? The _need _to exalt yourself above others? You are no better than a demon, even if it is merely flesh you wear." He paused for only a moment. "Perhaps it is a blessing you have forced me into the Fade, for only here can I see you for what you truly are. Here, the vile magic of your father still clings to you. And do you think I cannot sense the power of your ill-begotten sister in the currents of this place? Maybe she is the best of you all, but she is only beginning to learn the ways of the world."

He gave Kameron a sharp look. "The Wardens will corrupt her yet and teach her how to hold nothing sacred."

"We have to live in that world, you know," Hawke said, cutting off Kameron before he had a chance to speak. The Warden narrowed his eyes, patience wearing thin, but he held his silence.

"There is only death or compromise. I thought you understood it," he shrugged. "At least, shouldn't justice be _fair?_ We are weak, but we struggle."

Justice nodded his head slowly. "Yes, you _are _weak."

His hands curled around the sides of the throne, long and bony, pieces of dry skin fluttered like butterfly wings and cracked like ancient leather, revealing bleached bone beneath. He picked up the sword from his side and took a slow, menacing step down from the dais. He walked like an avalanche, slow and unstoppable.

Hawke took a step back, both hands going for his weapons, but he didn't draw them. He could afford it, of course, nothing would be faster than him in this place, unless Kameron had lied or been wrong about how far the Fade would bend to a mortal's will.

"You asked for fairness," Justice said, pointed the sword at Hawke's chest, then brought it around to aim at Kameron. "I remember you," he said and for the first time something like other than scathing hatred came into his voice. "You fought with me, you stood beside me when I.. when I nearly broke Aura's heart. Everything about your existence contradicts itself. You cannot be merciful and cruel at the same time, you cannot care and abuse. I saw you set Amaranthine ablaze and bow to the Architect!"

The fire in the hearth flared to sudden, unnatural life, flames licking up at the rafters of the hall. Heat spread from it, hit the backs of Hawke and Kameron like a furnace and yet, the light actually _dimmed _hiding the other Wardens from view as they were nothing but fading figures on a worn tapestry, long forgotten by the march of history.

The muscles in Hawke's neck tensed with the effort of _not _looking for Anders behind the barrier of fire.

"Or you could have watched me doom the Vigil and destroy our only chance for peace with the Darkspawn," Kameron countered forcefully. The cold from Vigilance beat against the heat of the fire, causing thin rivulets of condensation to run down the length of the sword and drip to the floor like tears.

"A good man would have found a way!" Justice snarled.

"I watched you destroy the Chantry in Kirkwall," Hawke said. His voice had gone rough and it grated in the stifling air. "I watched you kill innocents to force all nations into a senseless war."

"That was necessary!" Justice took another step and both Hawke and Kameron retreated, each to one side, making it difficult for Justice to keep them both in his sight at the same time. "A necessary sacrifice! There was no other way!"

"If you were a true Spirit of Justice, you would have found a way," Hawke said, knowing how cruel an echo it was. "But you are not," he finished. "You are a Demon of Vengeance."

Justice howled and it wasn't the sound a mortal would make, no human or elf, nor any other living creature, because mere flesh would not withstand the force of it. The flames danced to the rhythm of it, crawling along the roof.

Hawke had been _wrong_. Justice, whether spirit or demon, was native to this place, he was wrought of the same fabric and even if this was a vision made of lyrium and blood magic and willpower, it was a threadbare web, easily ripped and discarded, leaving no trace of its existence behind.

Justice attacked viciously, a hard stab with the sword, executed so fast, Hawke had no time to draw his weapons. He had barely begun to move, arms out in a sudden, desperate attempt to block or at least avert the stroke. He caught the blade in his hands, blood spurting as the edge cut deep through the leather of his gloves and into his flesh.

Hawke held onto the blade and threw his body to the side, only letting go when Justice's own momentum, leaning into Hawke, dragged him past. Justice growled like an animal and threw himself around after his escaped prey again, faster than he should have been able. He should have stumbled, lost his footing if only for the briefest of moments, but such a respite never came.

Panting hard, Hawke retreated, wrapping his bleeding hands around the hilts of his shivs, though the look in his eyes had became both intense and haunted, unable to hide the pain in his hands and the worry of the slippery grip.

But Justice could not finish the kill, because by then Kameron had cleared Vigilance, the longer and heavier blade having drawn out his reaction time. Vigilance _sang _in a frosty hiss as it clashed with Justice's sword and smashed the second attack before it came close to Hawke.

Justice reacted immediately, let Vigilance drag his sword down and lunged for Kameron's wrist with his free hand, steely fingers strong enough to break bones. But Kameron only bared his teeth against the pain, used the leverage to throw his shoulder into Justice's chest. He hit hard, the chain-mail of his own armour scraping across the chest-plate as the metal _screamed_ like a living thing.

The impact jolted Kameron's wrist free again and he twisted his blade in an attempt to dislodge the sword from Justice's grip. All he succeeded in doing, however, was to allow Justice to snap the sword up and bring it around in a sharp arc and catch Hawke's downward stroke before the shivs could bury themselves in his back.

Justice tightened his hold on Kameron's wrist momentarily, just long enough to force the Warden to react, shifting his stance and then Justice hurled him bodily into Hawke, who just barely snatched the shivs aside so Kameron didn't spear himself as they collided.

They jumped apart again immediately, fanning out again and keeping a safe distance between themselves and Justice.

"I came here to _talk _to you!" Kameron said, circling Justice in counterpoint with Hawke.

"I know the power of your words," Justice replied. He stood still and tall between them, only turning with them with minimal movements. The tip of his sword pointed down, but there was no doubting now how fast he would be, when he decided to press the attack.

"I fell for them," Justice added. "All those years ago in Amaranthine. You used my confusion against me, to control me and to blind me to the vileness of your magic. You were better at hiding your hubris, then."

The fire had spread to the entire roof by then, the flames crawling along, a sea of flames that somehow failed to consume the wood of the rafters and bring the roof down on them. Tiny, glowing sparks danced in the heated air like falling stars.

One fell on Hawke's cheek and turned to a fleck of ashes before it could burn his skin. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, smearing blood from his palms in the process. He grimaced, adjusted his grip on the shiv.

"I probably wasn't," Kameron said. Vigilance was trailing a frostwhite mist behind it, a sliver of cold in the blaze, if Kameron and Hawke had walked faster, the circle might have been completed before it evaporated. It would have held no power even then, only symbolism.

"But you still understood your own ideal," Kameron added. "You are killing Anders. Is he another necessary sacrifice? And what if he dies?"

He drew a random pattern into the air with the tip of his sword as he spoke. "What if it was all a ruse? I could leave right now and return to the real world to slit Anders' throat while Hawke is powerless to stop me."

Nothing gave away the lie, if indeed it was, no quick glance to make sure of Hawke or assuage his suspicions. Vigilance kept dancing, slicing the heat. And all the while, a second circle kept forming around Justice, from the blood that ran from Hawke's fingers and trailed down his blades.

"It would only reveal your true face to the others," Justice observed.

"That's not what I asked. What would _you _have if Anders died?"

And just like that, Hawke picked up the thread and said, "Would you try to find another mage? You know, promise him revenge and freedom in exchange for a place in his body? I heard demons do it that way, too. A tried and true method, you could say. "

Justice put his head to the side, a curious gesture and in calm contrast to his earlier outburst.

"Tell me, _Hawke," _he spoke the name like a curse and an insult. "What would _you _have if I abandoned Anders?"

"He would live," Hawke said.

Justice shook his head and the gesture seemed almost sympathetic. "He would be a stranger to you, even if he remembered he loved you."

"He would live," Hawke said again.

The fire was eating its way down the walls in a slow creep, perhaps suspecting it wasn't supposed to feast on stone. The roof was slowly shrinking away to reveal the sky above. It was an oddly tinted blue, too bright to be a nighttime sky, but strewn with sparkling stars nonetheless. Wild clouds were chasing across it, trying to form coherent shapes before they were blown apart.

"But you would lose him," Justice countered.

Hawke placed one foot deliberately in front of the other, careful to avoid the slippery lines of blood he had left behind. He seemed to have control of the pain and though his grip on the hilts of his shivs kept shifting, it was merely because his hold was thrown off.

Then he stopped. "I can accept that," he said. "If you can."

Kameron had stopped as well and Justice put his head back, suddenly alerted to their changing rhythm and the building tension. The dance of Vigilance's tip ended and in the wavering heat, the cold suddenly took shape, the cold fog collapsing and thickening, following a different pattern than the one dictated by mere airflow. The white flared into blue and the Glyph of Paralysis peeled itself from the cold. It shivered in the heat and stood upright for a moment, then it tipped and fell over Justice, sprawling itself on the ground around him. Hawke's blood writhed like worms before it rewrote itself into the perfect links of a chain.

The spell had got hold of Justice in mid-movement, ready to leap at his enemies with the threat of his sword and the impeccable shield of his righteousness.

The floor of the hall shook, a slow vibration that kept on mounting until Hawke spread his legs for a better stance and Kameron gave the burning walls a critical look. And under this scrutiny, the wall began to fold away, succumbing to the flames or some greater force. With a slow rumble that joined the earthquake of the ground under their feet, the walls collapsed back upon themselves to reveal the raw Fade around them. Undefined, shapeless mounds of what might be dirt stretched to a harsh cliff's edge at the horizon. Veins of lyrium cut through the landscape, pulsing like living arteries, breaking through the surface and seemingly ready to burst.

The outline of the hall kept burning around them. It was a feeble barrier against the demons advancing across the Fade from all directions. Small, translucent Shades and slinking, sensual demons of Desire alongside the towering shapes of demons of Pride, swatting the weaker ones aside even as they went.

Hawke watched them without taking his attention off Justice entirely. "Something tells me this isn't going according to plan."

Past the grim set of his face, Kameron spared him a wild grin. "You know what they say about plans and enemy contact."

"Yeah, but what now?"

Kameron watched him across the glow of the glyph as if trying to read not only his face but the secret twists and turns of his heart. "We could still kill Justice."

"Wouldn't that damage Anders' mind?"

"Damage? Yes. Destroy? Not necessarily."

Kameron had lowered Vigilance and stood in a posture more suited to a statue than a man in the middle of battle. His entire body was tense, every muscle straining and one must remember that while it was Merrill who held their vision of the Fade in place, he was the mage who had shaped it in the first place. The Vigil had not faltered into nothing but a narrow line of fire because he willed it to. The power had to have come from somewhere.

"That's your solution?" Hawke asked. A gust of wind crashed down from the wildly racing clouds, picked at the tattered edges of his clothes, whipped his hair around his face. He looked up, into the wind and watched as the clouds thickened until their white seemed perfectly solid and allowed the starlight through only where they had separated. An eagle's head reared out of the thickest cluster, turning this way and that as it hatched from the firmament.

"This is the moment where you wish I were as powerful as everyone fears," Kameron concluded with gently vicious venom. "I work magic not miracles. I…"

He was cut off as the glyph flared up and then was gone without leaving any trace at all. A sharp pain, shooting through the bindings of blood and into Hawke's veins made him flinch.

Justice had already begun his attack before the magic had shackled him. All he needed to do was finish the movement.

Kameron brought Vigilance up just in time to block the descending strike, but he staggered under the power of the attack and retreated, using both hands to grip Vigilance and sacrificing whatever advantage in speed he might otherwise have had.

Justice didn't let up, drove him across what had been the length of the hall, nearly caught him in the pillars that somehow had remained standing. One of Kameron's elbows caught on the wood and he stumbled awkwardly, defending and retreating. Sometimes, for but an instant an aura of power flickered up around him, some spells that failed for lack of power or concentration or because they dissipated in the force of Justice's presence.

"I thought you were mightier," Justice observed with no hint of strain in his voice.

"Don't judge too quickly," Kameron growled through bared teeth. "Only one of us is fighting to kill."

He parried another downward stroke and used the moment to step past Justice's guard to hammer his fist into his face. The angle was poor and the blow didn't carry the strength it could have had, though it stunned Justice for a split second, long enough for Kameron to twist Vigilance free and bring it around in a tight arc. A living man would have been gutted as the blade sliced past, at the seam of the cuirass and into the weaker chain-mail underneath.

A living man.

Kameron never expected Justice to go down. Instead, he ducked away from the counter as it came and straightened behind Justice before he had time to turn and Kameron smashed the hilt of his sword in Justice's neck and stepped hard with the heel of his boot into the back of his knee.

Justice buckled in memory of a mortal's reflexes he had worn for too long.

"Hawke!" Kameron called in the brief respite. He edged away from Justice until he could dare throw a look at where his cousin had been. "You have to…" _choose, _he had wanted to say, only to find everything had changed.

Anders stood by the fire of the hearth, Pounce cradled in his arms. He stood facing Hawke and it seemed as if they had stood like this for an eternity — it was the Fade, maybe they had — transfixed by the bounds of love and hatred that had held them for too long.

Slowly, Anders crouched down and set the cat on the floor. It stretched languidly, then sat too close to the fire, tail wrapped around its forelegs, watching first Anders and then Hawke, as Anders walked toward him.

In some vague, remembered instinct, Hawke raised his weapons halfway and held them there, unsure of what to do, facing Anders. In the end, there was no defence, no evasion at all, because Anders had always been too close.

Anders put one hand on Hawke's neck in a feather touch, almost to light to be felt and as unbreakable as steel.

"I'm sorry," Anders said quietly. "I truly am. It turns out, life really isn't what you expect. Make one wrong turn and it's downward from there, the sort you get from a really high cliff."

He pressed his forehead against Hawke's, turned his face to look at Kameron. The sadness in his face and voice was real, but it seemed a weak thing, barely holding on as the wind flared the flames and the clouds birthed griffons in the sky.

"Even with the Wardens, I could do nothing but fall. That's what I learned." His gaze dug hard into Kameron's. "That's what you did, probably not what you wanted, but it was about freedom, like in the fairy tales. I was freed."

He took a deep breath. Above and all around them, the griffons fell on the demons. At first, they evaporated when they touched, but then the wind picked up again and brought new clouds and new griffons, each larger and more solid than the ones before.

"Anders…" Hawke began and fell silent when Anders looked back at him and placed a long finger over his lips.

"No," Anders whispered and took his hand away to kiss Hawke, just a light brush of lips against lips, open-mouthed and full of longing. "You don't have to save me. I never got lost on the way down."

Hawke had let his arms fall limp by his side, with the blood still running from his hands. The muscles in his neck twitched under Anders' hand as he leaned forward slightly, first deepened the kiss and then broke it.

"You wanted this?" he asked.

Anders smiled faintly, sadly. "Not _this _exactly. I didn't know what would happen and where it'd go, but yes. It was a free choice and if I could go back, I would do it again."

He averted his eyes briefly. "Even if it hurts you. Or me. Or anyone. Some things are too important."

"HAWKE!"

Hawke snapped his head around, but found himself unexpectedly weak in Anders' arms with a grip much stronger than he should have had. "No," Anders said and there was real power in the voice.

Kameron cursed, even if it meant wasting precious air to do it. Justice had gripped his upper arm and thrown him into a pillar before Kameron managed to shake himself free, stumble and regain his feet. He was panting hard and the last retreat had brought him close to the line of flames and the fire was lapping greedily up his legs.

Distracted, he hissed and dipped away, narrowly bringing his sword around to block a stab at his exposed side.

He sent a quick look at Hawke and Anders. It was not enough to communicate anything, there was no time — no _space _— and Hawke seemed utterly caught by Anders. In a moment of peace, Kameron might have used Hawke's blood to jolt him free, but there was no such moment.

Justice tripped him. Kameron had seen the move, but had been unable to avoid it and he tumbled, almost lost his hold on Vigilance. Justice rammed his sword down, where his back had been only a heartbeat's duration before. The steel grated into the stones of the ground.

Kameron rolled and pulled himself on all fours, watched as Justice tore his sword free and advanced on him.

"Know that this is not how it should have ended," Justice declared.

Kameron shifted his weight, ever so slightly. "Is that so?" he asked, quietly, because his voice had gone rough and strained.

"That's a good thing, then," Kameron continued. "Because it _won't." _

He launched himself from the floor and into Justice with the full weight of his body and held on until he put Justice's back into another pillar, in a slam so hard it made the wood shiver and Justice groan. Kameron withdrew and pulled his sword back and rammed it through Justice' shoulder and into the pillar.

Justice howled, more surprise than actual pain, more anger than suffering. He dropped his own sword and closed his fingers around Vigilance in an attempt to dislodge it.

Around them, the strange storm had begun to consume the demons all the way to the horizon. Either they were merely hidden by the flying, writhing bodies of imaginary griffons or they were being devoured, their essences strewn across the Fade until they had regained the power to form bodies again.

"Stop," Anders ordered and suddenly stood by Kameron's side, pushed himself in front of Justice. He spread his arms out, as if inviting another strike. "It's over."

Kameron found Hawke not far away. He sheathed his daggers, flexing his hands carefully once they were free, palms fully coated in blood, soiling his shirt and trousers. He had left a long smear on the side of Anders' face, adding a note of savagery to his expression.

"Is it?" Kameron asked.

"If you are a good man," Anders said. "I always thought you were. I don't think I ever told you."

"Hawke?"

Hawke was silent for a long time, an odd point of stillness in the rage of the storm and the fury of Justice, impaled on Vigilance, something other than the dream of a sword was holding him there, because the legend had real substance in this place.

"Take us back," Hawke said quietly.

It seemed as if Kameron would refuse, the violence lingering like a shroud around him, ready to break loose once again, to dance with the storm-wind and tame the griffons. The limits of his power, so obvious in the lines of his face and the heaving of his chest, failed to matter.

Anders turned around and wrapped both hands around the hilt of Vigilance and pulled it free with too little effort.

The borderline of fire flared up brightly, once, and then fell into darkness and ashes, to be picked up by the wind. Even the bonfire of the hearth, the last remnant of the Vigil stuttered out and died.

Justice, freed, stood looming behind Anders' shoulder, the perpetual leer still on his damaged face, but there was no rancour in his eyes and no aggression in his posture.

Anders shifted his grip on Vigilance so he could offer its hilt to Kameron. "Thank you," he said. "But we should never see each other again."

"There would be something worse than steel," Justice added.

Kameron took the sword back, cautiously, still expecting an attack — or perhaps still looking for a loophole, an escape, a last card he could play.

The ground shivered and shook, dissolving under their feet as the sky finally unravelled and the stars behind the gale winked out one by one. The griffons held for a little while longer, tethered to some half-forgotten dreams of glories past. Then they, too, tore apart and faded into nothingness.

Tensely, Kameron nodded, sheathing Vigilance and the world folded around them, then tilted.

And was gone.

* * *

**Reference**

Je m'en vais chercher un grand peut-être; tirez le rideau, **la farce est jouée**.

_(I am going to seek a grand perhaps; draw the curtain, **the farce is played**.)_

— last words of François Rabelais, according to Peter Anthony Motteux

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thanks for reading! Leave a message!


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